Watching his opportunity he called upon Mrs. Vosburgh while Marian was out of the way, formally asking her, in her husband’s absence, for permission to pay his addresses; and he made known his financial resources and prospects with not a little complacent detail.

Mrs. Vosburgh was dignified and gracious, enlarged on her daughter’s worth, hinted that she might be a little difficult to win by reason of the attentions she had received and her peculiar views, yet left, finally, the impression that so flattering proposals could not be slighted.

Merwyn went home with a sigh of relief.  He would no longer approach Marian with doubtful and ill-defined intentions, which he believed chiefly accounted for the clever girl’s coldness towards him.

CHAPTER XIV.

Ominous.

Subordinate only to her father and two chief friends, in Marian’s thoughts, was her enemy, for as such she now regarded Willard Merwyn.  She had felt his attentions to be humiliating from the first.  They had presented her former life, in which her own amusement and pleasure had been her chief thought, in another and a very disagreeable light.  These facts alone would have been sufficient to awaken a vindictive feeling, for she was no saint.  In addition, she bitterly resented his indifference to a cause made so dear by her father’s devotion and her friends’ brave self-sacrifice.  Whatever his motive might be, she felt that he was cold-blooded, cowardly, or disloyal, and such courtesy as she showed him was due to little else than the hope of inflicting upon him some degree of humiliation.  She had seen too many manifestations of honest interest and ardent love to credit him with any such emotion, and she had no scruples in wounding his pride to the utmost.

Meanwhile events in the bloody drama of the war were culminating.  The Union officers were thought to have neither the wisdom to fight at the right time nor the discretion to retreat when fighting was worse than useless.  In consequence thousands of brave men were believed by many to have died in vain once more on the ill-fated field of Bull Run.

One morning, the last of August, Strahan galloped to the Vosburgh cottage and said to Marian, who met him at the door:  “Orders have come.  I have but a few minutes in which to say good-by.  Things have gone wrong in Virginia, and every available man is wanted in Washington.”

His flushed face was almost as fair as her own, and gave him a boyish aspect in spite of his military dress, but unhesitating resolution and courage beamed from his eyes.

“Oh, that I were a man!” Marian cried, “and you would have company.  All those who are most to me will soon be perilling their lives.”

“Guess who has decided to go with me almost at the last moment.”

“Mr. Blauvelt?”

“Yes; I told him that he was too high-toned to carry a musket, but he said he would rather go as a private than as an officer.  He wishes no responsibility, he says, and, beyond mere routine duty, intends to give all his time and thoughts to art.  I am satisfied that I have you to thank for this recruit.”