was brotherly and slightly contemptuous, but it was sufficient to
at once establish their kinship.

They continued on thus for some moments in silence, the girl, I
fear, after the fashion of her sex, taking the fullest advantage of
this slightly sentimental and caressing attitude. They were moving
now along the edge of the Marsh, parallel with the line of rapidly
fading horizon, following some trail only known to their keen
youthful eyes. It was growing darker and darker. The cries of the
sea-birds had ceased; even the call of a belated plover had died
away inland; the hush of death lay over the black funereal pall of
marsh at their side. The tide had run out with the day. Even the
sea-breeze had lulled in this dead slack-water of all nature, as if
waiting outside the bar with the ocean, the stars, and the night.

Suddenly the girl stopped and halted her companion. The faint far
sound of a bugle broke the silence, if the idea of interruption
could have been conveyed by the two or three exquisite vibrations
that seemed born of that silence itself, and to fade and die in it
without break or discord. Yet it was only the 'retreat' call from
the Fort two miles distant and invisible.

The young girl's face had become irradiated, and her small mouth
half opened as she listened. "Do you know, Jim," she said with a
confidential sigh, "I allus put words to that when I hear it--it's
so pow'ful pretty. It allus goes to me like this: 'Goes the day,
Far away, With the light, And the night Comes along--Comes along--
Comes along--Like a-a so-o-ong.'" She here lifted her voice, a
sweet, fresh, boyish contralto, in such an admirable imitation of
the bugle that her brother, after the fashion of more select