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328 "Yes," said he, "and she is just as good as she is good-looking. I think the world of her, and want to see her again—O, so bad!"

"Have you known her long, captain?" I asked, with a trembling voice, and scarcely daring to trust myself to speak, for these words, and the tender tone in which they were spoken, made my heart leap with joy, and brought tears to my eyes. I was afraid that he would notice my agitation, and in some way surmise the cause of it ; and I did not want him to do this, for I was not yet ready to reveal myself, but desired further to hear what he would say about me before I told him my secret. So I turned away, and pretended to be attracted by some object in another part of the room while I wiped the tears from my eyes, and attempted to recover my composure before 1 confronted him again.

"Yes," he went on, " I have known her for a long time. She is a widow, and her husband was an excellent friend of mine." Then, apparently suddenly recollecting the circumstances under which he first made my acquaintance in the character of a Confederate officer, he said, glancing quickly and eagerly at me, "Why, you ought to know her; her husband was the first captain of our company; you recollect him, surely."

"O," said I, as if rather surprised at this revelation, "she is his widow, is she?"

"Yes," said Captain De Caulp;" you have met her, have you not?"

I could scarcely help smiling at the turn this conversation was taking; and still wondering whether my lover would be shrewd enough to detect the likeness between the picture he was holding in his hand, and fondly gazing at, and the original of it who was sitting by his bedside, I said, "Yes, I have had a slight acquaintance with her, but you, probably, have known her longer than I have. When did you see her last?"

"I have not seen her for three years," he replied.

"Have you been engaged to her that long?"

"O, no ; I did not become engaged to her until about six months after the death of her husband. He was killed, as you know, at Pensacola, just after the war commenced, by the bursting of a carbine."

"Well, if you have not seen her all that time, how have you managed to do your courting?"