"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin' 'em!" Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe laughed with obvious relish. The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of "the ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of his granddaughters. The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece. Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies" in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them. The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond, for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre, he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own confident expectations. Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their diligent care of their toilette had not been in vain. The two younger ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled and perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was of a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with meaning--"speaking eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion and an entrancing smile, and amidst the twittering words and fluttering laughter of the others she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty, significant silence. "A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain. Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in the most notable crisis of his life!