Meantime Aunt Janet was "looking ghastly," said the ladies along that
somber line of quarters, and something really ought to be done. Just
what that something should be no two could unite in deciding, but
really Major Plume or Dr. Graham ought to see that, if something
wasn't done, she would break down under the awful strain. She had
grown ten years older in five days, they declared--was turning
fearfully gray, and they were sure she never slept a wink. Spoken to
on this score, poor Miss Wren was understood to say she not only could
not sleep, but she did not wish to. Had she kept awake and watched
Angela, as was her duty, the child could never have succeeded in her
wild escapade. The "child," by the way, had displayed rare
generalship, as speedily became known. She must have made her few
preparations without a betraying sound, for even Kate Sanders, in the
same room, was never aroused--Kate, who was now well-night
heartbroken. They found that Angela had crept downstairs in her
stockings, and had put on her riding moccasins and leggings at the
kitchen steps. There, in the sand, were the tracks of her long,
slender feet. They found that she had taken with her a roomy
hunting-pouch that hung usually in her father's den. She had filled
it, apparently, with food,--tea, sugar, even lemons, for half a dozen
of this precious and hoarded fruit had disappeared. Punch, too, had
been provided for. She had "packed" a half-bushel of barley from the
stables. There was no one to say Miss Angela nay. She might have
ridden off with the flag itself and no sentry would more than think of
stopping her. Just what fate had befallen her no one dare suggest. The
one thing, the only one, that roused a vestige of hope was that
Lieutenant Blakely had gone alone on what was thought to be her
trail.
Now here was a curious condition of things. If anyone had been asked
to name the most popular officer at Sandy, there would have been no
end of discussion. Perhaps the choice would have lain between Sanders,
Cutler, and old Westervelt--good and genial men. Asked to name the
least popular officer, and, though men, and women, too, would have
shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all
was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone,
self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and
selfish," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man
had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But
when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's
business, and never mentioning his own, courteous and civil, but never
intimate, studying a good deal but saying little, asking no favors and
granting few, perhaps because seldom asked, the chances are he will
win the name of being cold, indifferent, even repellent, "too high,
mighty, and superior." His very virtues become a fault, for men and
women love best those who are human like themselves, however they may
respect. Among the troopers Blakely was as yet something of an enigma.
His manner of speaking to them was unlike that of most of his
fellows--it was grave, courteous, dignified, never petulant or
irritable. In those old cavalry days most men better fancied something
more demonstrative. "I like to see an officer flare up and--say
things," said a veteran sergeant. "This here bug-catcher is too damned
cold-blooded." They respected him, yes; yet they little understood and
less loved him. They had known him too short a time.