Bad Hugh

Mug's face, expressive as it was, only reflected the feelings of the

others and Alice's decision was taken. They would protect Hugh's horses.

But how? That was a perplexing question until Mug suggested that they be

brought into the kitchen, which adjoined the house, and was much larger

than Southern kitchens usually are. It was a novel idea, but seemed the

only feasible one, and was acted upon at once. The kitchen, however,

would not accommodate the dozen noble animals, Claib's special pride,

and so the carpet was taken from the dining-room floor, and before the

clock struck ten every horse was stabled in the house, where they stood

as quietly as if they, too, felt the awe, the expectancy of something

terrible brooding over the household.

It was Alice who managed everything, giving directions where each one of

her subordinates was to stay, and what they were to do in case of an

attack. Every door and window was barricaded, every possible precaution

taken, and then, with an unflinching nerve, Alice stole up the stairs,

and unfastening a trapdoor which led out upon the roof, stood there

behind a huge chimney top, scanning wistfully the darkness of the woods,

waiting, watching for a foe, whose very name was in itself sufficient to

blanch a woman's cheek with fear.

"Oh, what would Hugh say, if he could see me now?" she murmured, a tear

starting to her eye as she thought of the dear soldier afar in the

tented field, and wondered if he had forgotten his love for her, as she

sometimes feared, or why, in his many letters, he never breathed a word

of aught save brotherly affection.

She was his mother's amanuensis, and as she could not follow her

epistles, and see how, ere breaking the seal, Hugh's lips were always

pressed to the place where her fingers had traced his name, she did not

guess how precious they were to him, or how her words of counsel and

sympathy kept him often from temptations, and were molding him so fast

into the truly consistent Christian man she so much wished him to be. He

had in one letter, expressed his surprise that she did not go to Europe,

while she had replied to him: "I never thought of going;" and this was

all the allusion either had made to Irving Stanley since the day that

Hugh left Spring Bank. Gradually, however, the conviction had crept over

Hugh that in his jealousy he acted hastily, that Irving Stanley had sued

for Alice's hand in vain, but he would not seek an explanation yet; he

would do his duty as a soldier, and when that duty was done, he might,

perhaps, be more worthy of Alice's love. He would have had no doubt of

it now could he have seen her that summer night, and known her thoughts

as she stood patiently at her post, now starting with a sudden flutter

of fear, as what she had at first taken for the distant trees seemed to

assume a tangible form; and again laughing at her own weakness, as the

bristling bayonets subsided into sleeping shadows beneath the forest

boughs.