Annie received, and many and various were the methods of pumping adopted to learn something of the prisoner,—­how he looked, how he acted, how he was dressed, and so forth.

‘Impertinence!’ he heard Annie exclaim, as one of these gossips passed through the gate, after putting her through a more minute inquisition than usual.  And he heard dainty shoe-heels impatiently tapping along the hall, and when she brought in a bouquet of fresh flowers he saw in her face traces of vexation.

    ‘I seem to be quite a “What-is-it?"’

    ’Shame!’—­and she broke off a stem and threw it out of the window
    with altogether unnecessary vehemence.

    ‘Splendid girl!’ thought Hugh; ‘where have I seen her?’

And he turned his thoughts back through the years that were past, calling up the old scenes; the balls, with their mazy, passionate waltzes, and their promenades on the balcony in the moonlight’s mild glow, when sweet lips recited choice selections from Moore, and white hands swayed dainty sandal-wood fans with the potency of the most despotic sceptres; the sleigh-rides, with their wild rollicking fun, keeping time to the merry music of the bells and culminating in the inevitable upset; the closing exercises of the seminary, when blooming girls, in the full efflorescence of hot-house culture, make a brief but brilliant display before retiring to the domestic sphere—­Oh, yes—­

    ‘Miss Dumars, were you not at the ——­ Institute last year?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Then you know my cousin,—­Jennie Gregory?’

    ’Yes, indeed:—­and you are her cousin.  How stupid in me not to
    recollect it.’

And she told him how that ‘Jennie’ was her dearest friend, and how in their intimacy of confidence she had told her all about him, and shown her his picture, and—­in short, Hugh and Annie began to feel much better acquainted.

It was a few days after this that Hugh sat by the open window, listening to Annie reading from the virtuous and veracious Richmond Enquirer.  Distressed by what he heard, not knowing whether it was true or not, he begged her to cease torturing him.  She laid aside the paper with an emphatic ‘I don’t believe it!’ that could not but attract his attention, and he looked up in surprise.

    ’I must tell you, Mr. Gregory—­I have been tortured long enough by
    this forced secrecy—­I am a rebel!’

    ‘That is the name we know you by,’ he replied, smiling.

‘But I am a rebellious rebel.  Yes,’ she added, rising, ’I detest with all my heart this wicked, causeless rebellion.  I detest the very names of the leaders of it.  And yet I am compelled to go about with lies upon my lips, and to act lies, till I detest myself more than all else!  I have consoled myself somewhat by making a flag and worshiping it in secret.  I will get it and show it to