forth incredulous smiles. Strahan was not a coward, except in the
presence of ridicule. This had more terrors for him than all the
guns of the Confederacy; and he knew that every one, from his own
family down, would laugh at the thought of his going to the war.
In a way that puzzled him a little he felt that he would not care
so much if Marian Vosburgh did not laugh. The battle of which he
had read to-day had at last decided him; he must go; but if Marian
would give him credit for a brave, manly impulse, and not think of
him as a ludicrous spectacle when he donned the uniform, he would
march away with a light heart. He did not analyze her influence
over him, but only knew that she had a peculiar fascination which
it was not in his impressionable nature to resist.

Thus it may be seen that he only gave an example of the truth that
great apparent changes are the result of causes that have long been
secretly active.

Marian, like many others, did not sufficiently take this fact into
account, and was on the qui vive for other remarkable manifestations.
They did not occur. As her father had predicted, life, in its
outward conditions, resumed its normal aspects. Her mother laughed
a little, sighed a little, when she heard the story of Mr. Lanniere's
final exit; the coquettish kitchen-maid continued her career with
undisturbed complacency; and Marian to her own surprise found that,
after the first days of her enthusiasm had passed, it required the
exertion of no little will-power to refrain from her old motives
and tactics. But she was loyal to herself and to her implied promise
to her father. She knew that he was watching her,--that he had set
his heart on the development, in a natural way, of her best traits.
She also knew that if she faltered she must face his disappointment