put his military foot down and ordered that all should be made ready for the retreat northward.
The Atalanta was finished; the store of slippers and shoes from the matchless shoemaker of Royal Street had come home; the races at the Fair Grounds had been won and lost; and the great sham battle between the veterans and the younger militiamen, and the famous competitive drill, were things of the past. The day of departure had been set, and the General, not without some feeling of regret, was taking leave of his new-made friends, first among whom was his old-time adversary, Colonel Lagrange. The Colonel had agreed to visit the Ruysdales at their New England home during the summer, and the General had hesitated about renewing his lease of the little house where they had passed so happy a winter. The hesitation was, however, only momentary. When he remembered the fears that had at times beset him of ever getting his daughter safely away from that city of fascinating men, he said to himself with a half sigh: "No, never again; the risk is too great." For the General was nothing but a poor, foolish old man after all, as we shall see; and the quiet Margaret, the girl whose whole life had been devoted to him and to the art that was their mutual delight, had undergone a change as wonderful and yet as natural as had been the
