She turned her head, bending forward to see if any were there, and one of her long, fair curls swept across and tangled itself in a thorny bush beside her. She caught it impatiently away, leaving a tangle of broken gold strands on the thorny stem. Before she turned back to him he had broken off the spray and hid it in his breast. "There is not a rose," lifting regretful eyes to his face, "excepting this one I wear. I carelessly broke it, but it is still fresh. You are welcome to that, if you will have it," she said, sweetly. "If you please." She disengaged it, and put it in his hand. He retained hers a moment. "Thanks, and--good-by." "Good-by," her voice said, regretfully, then added: "Oh! Captain Clendenon, find him for me, if you can! Oh, try your best!" "I pledge you my word I will," he answered, "but promise me that you will have faith in my endeavor; that you will live in hope." "Oh! I cannot, I cannot! I feel that I can never hope again!" she cried, but with a brightening glance. "But you will," he answered, cheerily. "Health, and hope, and love will all come back to you in time. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast.' God bless you, and good-by." Their hands met a moment in a strong, friendly clasp; her violet orbs dusk and dewy with feeling; her voice scarce audible as it quivered: "Good-by!" CHAPTER XVI. "SMILING AT GRIEF." "Come, rouse thee, dearest; 'tis not well To let the spirit brood Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell Life's current to a flood." --MRS. DINNIES. "And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep, 'Tis that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, which we must steep First in the icy depths of Lethe's spring Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep." --BYRON. "Lulu, I have come to take you for a drive," said Grace Winans, as she glided lightly into Miss Clendenon's sanctum, looking fair and fresh, and smiling, in faultless summer costume of frilled and fluted white muslin, and the daintiest of gray kid driving-gloves, for it is six months since Captain Clendenon went to Europe, and the last days of August are raining their burning sunshine on the sea-girt city of Norfolk.