Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/244

 "Certainly General, but I didn't flatter myself that you would recall it."

"I never forget a face. I hope you have been enjoying yourself?"

"More than I can express, sir."

"I'll join you bye and bye," said the General, taking leave.

"Now isn't he a dear old Papa?" she said demurely.

"He certainly knows how to make a timid young man feel at home."

"Are you timid?"

"Hadn't you noticed it?"

"Well, hardly." She shook her head and closed her eyes in the most tantalising way. "To see the cool insolence of conscious power with which you looked that great crowd in the face when you arose on that platform, I shouldn't say I was struck with your timidity."

"I was really trembling from head to foot."

"I wonder how you would look if really cool!"

"Honestly, Miss Sallie, I never speak to any crowd without the intensest nervous excitement. I may put on a brave front, but it's all on the surface."

"I can't believe it," she said shaking her head.

She looked at his serious face a moment and was silent.

"It's queer how we run out of something to say, isn't it?" she asked at length.

"I hadn't thought of it."

"Come up to the observatory and I'll show you Lord Cornwallis' look-out when he had his headquarters here during the Revolution."

She lifted her soft white skirts and led the way up the winding mahogany stairs into the observatory from which the surrounding country could be seen for miles.

"Here Lord Cornwallis waited in vain for Colonel