When she recovered from her swoon, she asked for you, and repeatedly for Oriana, and would not be comforted until I promised her that she should be taken immediately on to Richmond.

Upon this Miranda was tenderly lifted, and when she was told that she should be taken home without delay, and would soon see Oriana, she smiled like a pleased child, and ceased complaining.

" "Tell Oriana," replied Harold, "that I am with her in my prayers."

By the bedside Oriana Weems was seated, weeping silently.

"She died this morning very soon after you left," said Oriana, "without pain and I think without sorrow, for she wore that same sweet smile that you see now frozen upon her lips.

"She wished to see him, Oriana, before she died," said Beverly, "and I promised to bring him; and yet I am glad she passed away before his coming, for I am sure he could bring no peace with him for the dying, and his presence now is but an insult to the dead.

The features grew more distinct, and it pleased him to look upon them, although he strove in vain to fix them in his memory, until a tear-drop fell upon his cheek, and recalled his wandering senses; then he knew that Oriana was bending over him and weeping.

But he lay upon a comfortable bed in another room, and Beverly and Oriana stood beside, while the surgeon dressed his wounds.

he asked of Oriana, breaking a pause in the general conversation.

" "And we will startle you from your dream with the crack of our Southern rifles," added Oriana, somewhat maliciously, while Harold smiled at her enthusiasm.

" "Thank heaven we have less faith in their efficacy than you Northern gold-worshippers," observed Oriana, with playful sarcasm.

" "Or if it should not," said Oriana, "we can at least claim from it, each one, a grave, over which the foot of the invader may trample, but not over our living bodies.

Beverly was busy with his military duties, and Harold, who had already fully recovered from his wounds, was enjoying, in company with Oriana, a pleasant canter over the neighboring country.

Harold was arranging the girths of Oriana's saddle, and she herself was standing in her riding-habit beside the porch.

"Good afternoon, Captain Haralson," said Oriana, with her most gracious smile.

" "That is hardly fair," said Oriana.

" "Heart and brain have been mistaken ere now," returned Oriana.

They had now approached the edge of the plain which Oriana had pointed out on the preceding day.

"Cease your unprofitable argument," cried Oriana, "and let us have a race over this beautiful plain.

"Halt, there!" Oriana glanced over her shoulder, and could see a sunray gleaming from something that he held in his right hand.

Oriana knew it was fired but to intimidatethe distance was too great to give the leaden messenger a deadlier errand.

The two troopers soon came galloping up to where Oriana still sat motionless upon her saddle, watching the race with strained eyes and heaving bosom.

Consulting the little friendly compass which Oriana had given him, he pushed on briskly, turning always to the right or left, as the smoke, circling from some early housewife's kitchen, betrayed the dangerous neighborhood of a human habitation.

Harold braced himself as well as he could upon the yielding sand, and held his poignard, Oriana's welcome gift, with a steady grasp.

Harold sat gazing silently at the face of the invalid; sometimes a feeble smile would struggle with the lines of suffering upon the pinched and haggard lineaments, and once from the white lips came the murmur of a name, so low that only the solemn stillness made the sound palpablethe name of Oriana.