I will find you wherever you are." She had sent this letter to him three weeks before, and now she stood caressing the beautiful Rocket, who sometimes proudly arched his long neck, and then looked wistfully at the sad group gathered around him, as if he knew that was no ordinary parting.

Colonel Tiffton, who had heard what was going on, had ridden over to expostulate with Mrs.Worthington against sending Rocket North.

"Better keep him at home," he said, "and tell Hugh to come back, and let those who had raised the muss settle their own difficulty." The old colonel, who was a native of Virginia, did not know exactly where he stood.

"He was very patriotic," he said, "very, but hanged if he knew which side to take--both were wrong.

He didn't go Nell's doctrine, for Nell was a rabid Secesh; neither did he swallow Abe Lincoln, and he'd advise Alice to keep a little more quiet, for there was no knowing what the hotheads might do.