But no! He offered his services as escort to Mrs. Clinton, who looked suspiciously and helplessly at him like some tender old baby. "There is no necessity, but I thank you very much," she said; "I came alone." The engaging Ashley would not be denied. He had noticed, he said, that to-day some droves of mules were being driven into town, and the heedless soldiers raced along perfectly regardless of what was in the roads before them. They should have some order taken with them, really. "Oh, _don't_ report them," said the old lady. "The--the discipline of the army is so--so _painful_." "But there are no painless methods yet discovered of making men obey," said Ashley, laughing. She still looked at him, doubtfully, as a mouse might contemplate the graces of a very suave cat. But when Julius gazed out from the garret window at the departing group, he was duly impressed with the handsome colonel of cavalry conducting the aged lady on one arm and bearing her delicate little extra shawl on the other, while Mrs. Fisher with Mildred and her "dancing bear," who had taken some clumsy steps that day, made off toward Roanoke City, and the other ladies variously dispersed, Captain Baynell attending the party only to the end of the drive. Ashley's graceful persistence was justified by the meeting of some of the reckless muleteers in full run down the road, with furious cries and snapping whips and turbulent clatter of animals and men. As his tremulous charge shrunk back aghast, he simply lifted his sword "like a wand of authority," as she always described it, and the noisy rout was turned aside, as if by magic, into a byway, leaving the whole stretch of the turnpike for the passage of the gallant cavalier and one aged lady. When Baynell came back through the grove and into the house, the parlor doors still stood open. The western radiance was yet red on the walls, albeit the moon was in the sky. The crumb-cloth that had protected the carpet from lint was gone, the sewing-machines had vanished, all traces of the work were removed, and wonted order was restored among chairs and tables. The rear apartment was as he had seen it hitherto, save that the windows on the western balcony were open, and Mrs. Gwynn, in her white dress, was standing at the vanishing point of the perspective, glimpsed through the swaying curtains and a delicate climbing vine. He hardly hesitated, but passed through the rooms and stepped out, meeting her surprised eyes as she leaned one hand on the iron railing of the balcony. "I want to speak to you," he said. "I want to know if you think I should have made it plain to those ladies this afternoon that they need fear no interference from me?" "Oh, I think they understood," she said listlessly, as if it was no great matter. Her eyes were fixed on the purple western hills. The last vermilion segment of the great solar sphere was slipping beyond them, the sunset gun boomed from the fort, and the flag fluttered down the staff.