"How well you bear the thought of a month's confinement!" said Ellis, thinking Blythe looked charmingly pretty as she threw her head back and laughed at her own nonsense.

"I will tell you a secret. I am, in the flesh, the laziest creature in the world; but I have an intellectual consciousness that laziness is contemptible. So my two selves are constantly at war; I am torn by conflicting desires. But now I'm at peace; for it is my plain duty to do nothing but lie on the sofa, read novels, and drink lemonade. Can you suggest any further amusement, should these finally pall upon me?"

"You might learn the signal language," said Ellis, laughing. "What is that?" said Blythe, with lively interest.

"It is a method of communication invented by the officers of the Thirteenth. All the ladies in camp have learned it, and amuse themselves signalling from tent to tent on rainy days." "I should like to learn it. Do you think I could?"

"You need only a handkerchief and a memory. It is a little like talking with the fingers, you know."

"Ah, yes, I begin to see into it. But it must take a great deal of practice before one can do it at all well."

"You shall have all the practice you want," said Ellis, promptly. "Your window overlooks the camp. I shall take some tall tree as my station, and climb it every morning just at the hour when Daniel-or was it Peter?-went out on the housetop to pray. Then I shall inquire how you have passed the night? when I may come and see you? whether you've any commissions for the humblest of your servants? and a thousand other things, that you must answer at length for practice."

"I fear it will be a severe tax on my intellect," said Blythe ; "and I shall read fewer magazines than I supposed I should." "I brought you some books to-day, by the way," said Ellis, "some odd volumes of Hawthorne. You were saying that you were not familiar with his works?"

"Except the 'Marble Faun.' I know that by heart."

f

"Take the 'Scarlet Letter' next. It will mark a date in your life. I do not know whether I could be so greatly moved again as I was when I first read the 'Scarlet Letter.' Never did a book so profoundly impress my imagination. I have thought since then that it is the one matchless flower of American literature. I was quite young when I read it; but I half fear to read it again, as it seems to be a law of life that the same delight shall never be tasted twice by the same lips."

"Is Hawthorne your favourite American author, Mr. Ellis?" "No, I think not; though he, in my judgment, is the great artist of America. His style is consummate art-the work is fused in his genius and is a perfect unit. You must admire it as a finished product of his mind; not stop, as you do in reading some very clever authors of a later date, and pick out plums in every paragraph to admire separately. Such a style may be art, but it is mosaic art; high sometimes, but the highest never."

A ring at the bell was heard, and a moment later Betty Page and Captain Silsby came in.

"How is your foot, Blythe?" cried Miss Betty. "What a thousand pities it should be hurt just now! Did you know that the officers were going to give us a ball in Masonic Hall?” "How soon?”

"In a week or two-as soon as I learn to glide. Captain Silsby is going to give me a lesson to-night. You must learn, Blythe, just as soon as your foot gets well."

"Is it very hard?"

"Let us show the step, Captain Silsby," said Betty; and the young lady and the officer placed themselves opposite each other.

"It is very simple," said Captain Silsby, speaking with more animation than usual. "The great thing is to remember always to keep one foot behind the other. If you let them go apart you are lost. Then it is only a continued forward and back-come to me--go away"-and the captain balanced lightly to and from Miss Betty Page.

"Only two steps?" said Blythe.

"Yes; the third is a rest.

Now see how it goes to music,"

6

Beans! beans!

Boston baked beans

he hummed agreeably. And to see the blonde and languid young officer advance on the first beans, retreat on the second, and rest on Boston, while Betty followed his movements with flushed gravity and pretty, awkward steps, was a sight to win a smile from the weeping philosopher.

"Never mind," said Blythe;" while you are gliding I shall be learning something very mysterious and delightful—the signal language."

"What is that?" said Betty; hardly waiting for it to be explained before expressing a violent desire to add it to her accomplishments. "You will teach me, won't you, Captain Silsby?"

"For what other purpose was I born?" said the captain. "Do you dance, Mr. Ellis?" asked Betty.

"No, indeed. I should be at a loss to know what to do with myself in a ball-room.”

"You ought to learn. Come over this evening, and have a lesson with me."

"Thank you, Miss Page, but I fear nothing short of standing on a hot plate would make me dance in this year of my life, and I have an engagement for this evening. Willy Tolliver is sick, and I promised to look in on him."

"Willy Tolliver: who is he?"

"I believe you call him Civil Rights Bill."

"Oh!" said Betty, with a look of wonder in her grey eyes. "Captain Silsby, I think it time we were off."

"Don't go," said Blythe, hospitably.

"We must," said Betty. "Captain Silsby is invited to our

house to tea, and if we are late there's no certainty that Aunt Lizzy will keep us any hot muffins."

"So much the better," said Captain Silsby. "Who wants his constitution undermined by these delicious hot abominations that you Southern folks eat at an hour when you ought to be virtuously supping on cold bread and apple-sauce!"

"And yet I notice that you Yankees never decline these 'hot abominations.""

"True, but the goblins rend us afterwards."

"How proud you are of being a dyspeptic!" said Betty. "You allude to it as constantly as Squire Barton does to the Barton hand, and with the same complacency."

"On the contrary," said Silsby, with an air of sentiment, “I deplore it now more than ever, as it seems to place a gulf between us. On every other point there is such harmony. Still, as the years roll on, a persistent course of hot muffins and pickles on your part may unite us in feeling."

"Don't you think," said Mr. Ellis to Blythe, in a stage whisper," that their conversation is taking a very personal turn? Would it not show a delicate sympathy if I were to wheel your chair to the farthest window, and read to you in a loud voice?" "For shame, Mr. Ellis!" cried Betty. "Now we are really going. Good-bye, Blythe dear; I shall see you to-morrow." "Don't you think their hearts are beginning to tip a little toward each other?" said Ellis, after they had gone.

"It hardly seems possible. You've no idea how bitterly Betty spoke against you before you came. She and I almost had a quarrel because I said I hoped the officers would be received. But I suppose she can't resist the temptation to amuse herself."

"She would find it very amusing to marry Silsby," said Mr. Ellis, with a laugh; " and she isn't one to trouble her head about consistency. Now, you have been consistent all the way through."

"Yes," said Blythe, proudly; "I am not influenced by my feelings or fancies."

"I have an artist friend," said Ellis, gravely," and some day I shall get him to paint me a new Goddess of Reason. She shall be standing in the moonlight in a Southern garden, with rose-leaves falling about her, and one red rose clinging by its thorns in her golden hair."

me," said Blythe; " but, Only try me."

"I am afraid you are laughing at indeed, I am reasonable in all things. "Perhaps I shall, some day," he answered.