Dakie Thayne, run over to Green's, and say,--The ladies' compliments
to General Ingleside and friends, and beg the honor of their presence
at the concluding tableaux."

Dakie was off with a glowing face, something like an odd, knowing
smile twinkling out from the glow also, as he looked up at Scherman
and took his orders. All this while he had said nothing.

Leonard Brookhouse made his little speech, received with applause and
a cheer. Then they quieted down behind the scenes, and a rustle and
buzz began in front,--kept up for five minutes or so, in gentle
fashion, till two gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked quietly in at
the open door; at sight of whom, with instinctive certainty, the whole
assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, peeping through the folds of the
curtain, saw a tall, grand-looking man, in what may be called the
youth of middle age, every inch a soldier, bowing as he was ushered
forward to a seat vacated for him, and followed by one younger, who
modestly ignored the notice intended for his chief. Dakie Thayne was
making his way, with eyes alight and excited, down a side passage to
his post.

Then the two actors hurried once more into position; the stage was
cleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, the tent
trembling with some one whisking further out of sight behind
it,--twice, and the curtain rose upon "Consolation."

Lovely as the picture is, it was lovelier in the living tableau. There
was something deep and intense in the pale calm of Susan Josselyn's
face, which they had not counted on even when they discovered that
hers was the very face for the "Sister." Something made you thrill at