home? Come back, Lige. But--but never speak to me again of this night!
Jinny is waiting for us."

Not a word passed between them as they went up the quiet street. At the
sound of their feet in the entry the door was flung open, and Virginia,
with her hands out stretched, stood under the hall light.

"Oh, Pa, I knew you would bring him back," she said.




CHAPTER XXIII

OF CLARENCE

Captain Clarence Colfax, late of the State Dragoons, awoke on Sunday
morning the chief of the many topics of the conversation of a big city.
His conduct drew forth enthusiastic praise from the gentlemen and ladies
who had thronged Beauregard and Davis avenues, and honest admiration from
the party which had broken up the camp. The boy had behaved well. There
were many doting parents, like Mr. Catherwood, whose boys had accepted
the parole, whose praise was a trifle lukewarm, to be sure. But popular
opinion, when once aroused, will draw a grunt from the most grudging.

We are not permitted, alas, to go behind these stern walls and discover
how Captain Colfax passed that eventful Sunday of the Exodus. We know
that, in his loneliness, he hoped for a visit from his cousin, and took
to pacing his room in the afternoon, when a smarting sense of injustice
crept upon him. Clarence was young. And how was he to guess, as he looked