“I beg pardon, Miss Heartwell, for my inattention.  I was thinking of the past—­the past recalled by your own story.  Excuse my abstraction, I pray.”

“But the young ladies?” said Lizzie.

“I do not care to dance now, if you will allow me the pleasure of a promenade,” he replied.

“Certainly I will,” replied Lizzie with a graceful bend of the shapely head; and clasping with her timid little hand the strong arm of the manly cadet, she passed with him from the lower drawing-room across the hall to the library.

“There’s more room in the corridor than here,” said Lizzie; “suppose we go there?”

“First let me ask a question, suggested by the musical instrument I see standing in the library.  Do you sing?  Do you sing with the harp?”

“I do.”

“Will you not sing for me?”

“I will, with pleasure, if you will make room in the library,” she replied with unaffected simplicity.  The library was occupied by a number of matronly ladies and elderly gentlemen—­all of the guests who were not participating in the dance.  Lizzie bowed her head slightly, and passed to the harp, now silent in one corner.  Without hesitation she seated herself before it, and the slender fingers grasped the strings of the instrument with a masterly touch, running through a soft, sweet prelude of tender chords.  Her voice at last trilled forth in the charming strains of the old Scotch ballad, “Down the burn, Davy, love.”

Concluding this old favorite air, she sang again, with sweetness, the witching song, “I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.”

Then rising from the harp, she said, with sweet accent and sweeter smile, “Now that I have bewitched you with my music, Mr. Marshall, I am ready for the promenade on the corridor.”

These words so lightly spoken by the girl, were but the utterance of a truth of which she had no suspicion.  George Marshall was indeed bewitched, and bowing a silent assent, he offered his arm to the enchantress, and soon Lizzie found herself among the dancers, who were seeking temporary relaxation from the exercise, scattered in groups here, there, and everywhere about the spacious building.

Out into the long balcony, where the silvery moonlight lay softly as dew upon the flowers, George Marshall led the way, with the young girl clinging timidly to the brave strong arm, that for months had known no tenderer touch than the cold, cruel steel of the musket, the constant companion of the cadet in the military course just closing.

They passed in silence through the corridor, and at last stood at the eastern end that overlooked the sea, stretching her arms around the child of her bosom, the devoted Queen City.

George Marshall, always taciturn, was now painfully silent.  His brain, always quick and clear to comprehend a problem in Legendre, now seemed beclouded and sluggish.  At length, embarrassed by the oppressive silence, Lizzie endeavored to arouse her companion by remarking,