daringly as he had ever spurred his horse upon an Indian wigwam.

The last Dudley of the Virginian line withstood, through several stormy
years, the united appeals of his daughter and her lover. In the end he
yielded, subdued by opposition and gout, retaining the strength to
insert but a single stipulation in the marriage contract, to the effect
that his daughter should drop the name of Jane and be known as Dudley in
her husband's household. To this the dashing bridegroom acquiesced with
readiness, and when, within a year of the wedding, his wife presented
him with a son, he called the boy, as he called the mother, by her
maiden name.

He was a jovial young buck, who lived in his cards and his cups and
loathed a quarrel as he loved a fight.

When the war between the States arose he went with Virginia, caring
little for either cause, but conscious that his heart was where his home
was. So he kissed the young mother and the boy at her side and rode
lightly away with a laugh upon his lips, to fall as lightly in the mad
charge of cavalry at Brandy Station.

When the news came Jane Dudley listened to it in silence, her hands
clasping the worsteds she was winding. After the words were spoken she
laid the worsteds carefully aside, stooping to pick up a fallen ball.
Then she crossed the room and went upstairs.

She said little, refusing herself alike to consolation and to
acquaintances, spending her days in the shuttered house with her boy
beside her. When he fretted at the restraint she tied a band of crêpe on
his little jacket and sent him to play on the green, while she took up