manner connected with my parents."

"You are right--that must be the reason it has been kept from your
ears."

"Surely, surely, I am old enough to hear it _now_--_you_ will
conceal nothing from me, Bob?"

"If I would, I could not, now. It is too late, Maud. You know the
manner in which Major Meredith died?--"

"He fell in battle, I have suspected," answered the daughter, in a
suppressed, doubtful tone--"for no one has ever directly told me even
that."

"He did, and I was at his side. The French and savages made an assault
on us, about an hour earlier than this, and our two fathers rushed to
the pickets to repel it--I was a reckless boy, anxious even at that
tender age to see a fray, and was at their side. Your father was one of
the first that fell; but Joyce and _our_ father beat the Indians
back from his body, and saved it from mutilation. Your mother was
buried in the same grave, and then you came to us, where our have been
ever since."

Maud's tears flowed fast, and yet it was not so much in grief as in a
gush of tenderness she could hardly explain to herself. Robert
Willoughby understood her emotions, and perceived that he might
proceed.

"I was old enough to remember both your parents well--I was a