Kincaid's Battery

ts grounds, whose abundance and variety of flowering, broad-leaved evergreens lent, in turn, a poetic authenticity to its Greek columns and to the Roman arches of its doors and windows. Es

h went up, and at the veranda's balustrade

nchanting, and in confidence that no earthly eye was on her she tarried, gazing out

's brightness her dark outline showed true, and every smallest strand of her hair that played along the contours of brow and head changed his merr

r the windows of Pontalba Row--one of which was Flora's. Would it ring straight on, or would it pause between that window and the orange and myrtle shades of Jackson Square? Constance had said that day to Miranda--for this star-gazer to overhear--that she did not believe Kincaid loved Flora, and the hearer had l

did he not stand to his meaning when I laughed it away? Was that for his friend's sake, or is he only not brave enough to make one wild guess at me? Ah, I bless Heaven he'

ddenly aware of the family coachman close at his s

spered. "You all right, o' co'se! Yit dese days, w

d Hilary, "you'v

awd, no!

w step in and fetch me out here--" He shaped h

ess laughter the ne

t, and drew forth--no mere secret page but--a whole diary! "To Anna, from Miranda, Christmas, 1860." Slowly she took up a

of Flora, the m

awful, sermon on the duty of r

e, or else go ten times as far away! Only not to the war--God forbid! Ah, me, how I long for his inclining! And while I long

ts leaves. The bent head stirred not, but a thrill answered through the hearer's frame as a second cadence ventured up and in and a voice followed it in song. Tremblingly the book slid into the

hat rose to Anna on the odors of the garden and drove her about the room, darting,

Sylvi

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red curta

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the sun; nor now your frame show more affright though soldiers were breaking in your door. Anna, Anna! your fingers are clenched in your palms, and in your heart one frenzy implores the singer to forbear, while another bids him sing on though the heavens fall. Anna Callender! do you not know this? You have dropped into a chair, you grip the corners of your desk. Now you are up again, trembling

it. "Who--who?" But in spite of her it opens

n soft glee. "That's the

I--I--the floor is al

anishes: "Why, Nan!

so loud! He's r

it's nothing b

now--this was my window? Oh, put out that lamp or he'll think I l

ou never in

won't stay with you!" The speaker

na stood in Miranda's doorway wearing her most self-contained

ran full and she glided to her knees by the seated one and into her arms, murmuri

trayed her return, and Constance endeavoured to slip out, but Anna c

e dim veranda, tossed her crumpled ribbon over the rail, flitted back, bent a

e more into her eyes came their wonted serenity--with a tinge of ex

ylvia

to mine i

azure

f lovelig

dness find I en

then sadness is

st beg

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