felt the gloom, the shame and sorrow that no one dared to express; for, just because no one dared to express it, the very stones of the streets found a voice that spoke to every heart. 

The bitterest royalist remembered. All the riot of military music could not drown the memory of sounds once far more familiar--the cheerful greeting of men in the market place, and all the busy, happy tumult of prosperous trade; the laughter and chatter of joyful women and children, and the music of the church bells above the pleasant streets.

Neil was silent and unhappy; Maria full of the excitement of the passing moment. They sat in the open window of Neil's office and watched company after company march to the warships in which they were to embark: Grenadiers of Auspach with their towering black caps and sombre military air; brass-fronted Hessians; gaudy Waldeckers; English corps glittering in scarlet pomp; and Highlanders loaded with weapons, but free and graceful in their flowing contour. On these latter especially, both Neil and Maria fixed their interest. Who can say how long national feeling, expatriated, may live? Neil leaped to his feet as the plaided men came in sight. Their bagpipes made him drunk with emotion; they played on his heartstrings and called up centuries of passionate feelings. He clasped his sword unconsciously; his hand trembled with that magnetic attraction for iron that soldiers know. 

At that moment he said proudly to his soul, "Thou also art of Scottish birth!" and a vision of hills and straths and of a tossing ocean filled his spiritual sight.

Maria's interest was of the present and was centered on the young captain walking at the head of his company; for Quentin Macpherson was a born soldier, and whatever he might lack in a ball-room, he lacked nothing at the head of his men. His red hair flowing from under his plaided bonnet was the martial color; it seemed proper to his stern face and to the musket and bayonet, the broadsword, dirk and pistols which he wore or carried with the ease and grace of long usage. He stepped so proudly to the strains of "Lochaber;" he looked so brave and so naturally full of authority that Maria was, for the moment, quite subjugated. She had told him on the previous night, at what place she was to view the embarkment; and she detected the first movement which showed him to be on the watch for her.

This fleeting pleasure of exhibiting himself at his best to the girl he loves, is a soldier's joy; and the girl is heartless who refuses him the small triumph. Maria was kind, 

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