father never tired of hearing his rough tales of Price's rough army.

His departure was about the time when suspicions were growing set. The
favor had caused comment and trouble, hence there was no hope of giving
another sufferer the same comfort. The cordon was drawn tighter. One of
the mysterious gentlemen who had been seen in the vicinity of Colonel
Carvel's house was arrested on the ferry, but he had contrived to be rid
of the carpet-sack in which certain precious letters were carried.

Throughout the winter, Mr. Hopper's visits to Locust Street had continued
at intervals of painful regularity. It is not necessary to dwell upon his
brilliant powers of conversation, nor to repeat the platitudes which he
repeated, for there was no significance in Mr. Hopper's tales, not a
particle. The Colonel had found that out, and was thankful. His manners
were better; his English decidedly better.

It was for her father's sake, of course, that Virginia bore with him.
Such is the appointed lot of women. She tried to be just, and it occurred
to her that she had never before been just. Again and again she repeated
to herself that Eliphalet's devotion to the Colonel at this low ebb of
his fortunes had something in it of which she did not suspect him. She
had a class contempt for Mr. Hopper as an uneducated Yankee and a person
of commercial ideals. But now he was showing virtues,--if virtues they
were,--and she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. With his great
shrewdness and business ability, why did he not take advantage of the
many opportunities the war gave to make a fortune? For Virginia had of
late been going to the store with the Colonel,--who spent his mornings
turning over piles of dusty papers, and Mr. Hopper had always been at his
desk.