It was only a serge gown she wore, of the darkest red hue,--murrey-colored, she called it,--but all faint vestige of the journey had vanished, and over the long, straight bodice of those days was a cape or fichu of fine white cambric, embellished with a delicate tambour, one of those graceful accomplishments which her "grand'maman" had brought from France, and transmitted to a docile pupil as among the arts which should adorn a woman. The deep red and the vivid white of this costume comported well with her fine dark-brown hair, rising straight from her forehead in a heavy lustrous undulation, and drawn back to be gathered into a dense knot, her fair smooth complexion, the contemplative yet suave expression of her large dark eyes, and their heavy, almost diplomatic eyelashes,--for they implied so much that they did not say, and were altogether the most effective feature of that most effective face. Often Sandy, who had taken more notice of those eyes and eyelashes than any one else in the world,--although they had not been unremarked in general,--could not decipher what she meant by them, and at other times he marveled why she should say so much with them instead of with the means which Nature had bestowed for the expression of her views,--of which, too, she made ample use. Those eyelashes, for instance, indicated disdain, reproof, reproach, and yet a repudiation of comprehension when Captain Stuart said significantly that he hoped she found her footing quite satisfactory to-day--she was wearing a spruce pair of prunella brodequins which had come in the pack. With his bluff raillery he inquired of her how she had the conscience to grudge her husband the triumph of knowing that she had shed a tun of tears for his absence yesterday and had demanded of the commandant of the post that the whole strength of the garrison should instantly take the field to search for him. "For discipline," she answered, with placid solemnity. "If he knew that I care enough to weep for him instead of for my shabby shoes, my authority would be shattered. And a mutiny, under any circumstances, is not pretty." The river carried the officer's jovial laughter far along the lapsing current that was growing steely now, reflecting a pale gray sky of very luminous tone, beneath which the primeval woods were dark and gloomy, and the mountains on the east loomed but dimly through the gray mists, while on the west the summit-line was hard and darkly distinct. It was winter, for all the still air; no sound of bird, no chirring of cicada, no rustle of leaf. The voice of the river rose quite alone in the silence, and a single star seemed to palpitate in a white agitation as it listened.