circles of stone steps about the high bronze figure of Henry Clay were
hidden by men and boys packed as close as they could sit or stand. A
great procession had gone up-town and would by and by return. Near and
far banners and pennons rose and fell on the luxurious air, and the
ranks and ranks of broad and narrow balconies were so many gardens of
dames and girls, parasols, and diaphanous gowns. Near the front of the
lowest Hyde & Goodrich balcony, close by the gilded pelican, sat the
Callenders, all gladness, holding mute dialogues with Flora and Madame
Valcour here on the balcony of Moody's corner. It was the birthday of
Washington.

Not of him, however, did Flora and her grandmother softly converse in
Spanish amid the surrounding babel of English and French. Their theme
was our battery drill of some ten days before, a subject urged upon
Flora by the mosquito-like probings of Madame's musically whined
queries. Better to be bled of almost any information by the antique
little dame than to have her light on it some other way, as she had an
amazing knack of doing. Her _acted_ part of things Flora kept untold;
but grandma's spirit of divination could unfailingly supply that, and
her pencilled brows, stiff as they were, could tell the narrator she had
done so.

Thus now, Flora gave no hint of the beautiful skill and quick success
with which, on her homeward railway trip with Greenleaf that evening,
she had bettered his impressions of her. By no more than a gentle play
of light and shade in her smile and an undulating melody of
voice--without a word that touched the wound itself, but with a timid
glow of compassionate admiration--she had soothed the torture of a heart
whose last hope Anna had that same hour put to death.