The drilling was ended, the last evolution made, the halt commanded, and the order to disband spoken.

Like a fragile piece of potter's work, the magic ranks broke apart, and each gun fell to the ground with a heavy "thud," like an iron weight.

"I say, George, I am deuced tired of this turning and twisting, and I'll be glad when the term ends, and I am set free from this place."

"Well, I can't say that I will, Le Grande," replied George Marshall, as handsome a cadet as wore the uniform, and one highly ambitious for promotion. "I came to this institute, because I was always fascinated by military display, and I intend to make this my lifelong profession."

"Whew! how tired I am! Well, you are welcome to it. As for me, it's the last life I should choose. I like the uniform very well, especially when I go where the girls are--they always give a cadet's suit a second glance--but as for the 'profession of arms,' as you call it, excuse me."

"What! would you like, Le Grande, always to be playing lady's man?"

"Oh! yes; and that reminds me, George, that I have a new lady-love; she is at Madam Truxton's. To-day, at intermission, let's saunter down to the seminary, and catch a glimpse of the girls. Maybe I'll see her."

"I can't; at intermission I must study my Legendre. Look at the clock now; it's late."

"Bother the Legendre! you are the strangest fellow I ever saw--care no more for the girls than a 'cat does for holidays.' Won't you go?"

"Not to-day, Le Grande. I am very busy."

The clock struck nine, and George Marshall, with the other disbanded cadets, hurried to the duties of the day--to the hard task of study that awaited them within the grim walls of the citadel.

For a moment before turning to his books, George Marshall looked out of the window, far away to the blue, misty harbor. There he saw again old Fort Defiance, standing grim, stern, and dark against the morning sky--the only object that marred the brightness of the blue heaven and the blue water, melting together in the distance.

"How beautiful the harbor is to-day! And yet how sullen the fort looks," said the young cadet as he surveyed the scene. "I see the flag of my country floating, and all is peaceful and quiet in the waters. Thank God for such a country! But I must hasten to my duties."

CHAPTER VI.

"LEAH, dear, what troubles you this morning? Your melancholy look distresses me. Is it any sorrow that you dare not unfold to your loving

"LIZZIE?"

These lines Lizzie Heartwell slipped into the leaves of a book that lay upon Leah's desk, while she was absent at a music recitation.

By and by the bell sounded for the half hour's release from study.

Then Leah stepped across the room, and gently taking Lizzie by the arm, said, "Come, let's walk."

Lizzie put her arm around her friend, and the two girls walked out into the court-yard, that formed a play-ground for the younger scholars and a pleasant promenade for the older ones, and then turned aside upon the brick walk that connected the kitchen and servants' hall with the main building.

This brick walk, covered overhead by the piazza floor of the second story of the wing of the building, was securely protected in all kinds of weather. As Leah and Lizzie turned upon this promenade, Bertha Levy came skipping up to them with a merry bound, saying:

"Come girls, let's have a game of graces. Helen is willing. Here she is. What do you say?"

"Excuse me this morning, Bertha," Leah replied. "I do not feel well; my head aches, and perhaps I can walk it away!"

"Oh! yes, certainly; but you are as solemn as an owl, of late, Leah; what is the matter with you? Do you contemplate taking the veil? If so, is it the white or the black veil?"

"Our people never take the veil, Bertha. Do you forget?" replied Leah reproachfully.

"Forgive me, dear, I meant no harm. But I am in a hurry. Dame Truxton will have that old bell sounded directly, and my game of graces not even begun. I wish the old thing was still in its native ore, and not always ready to call us into trouble;" and so saying, Bertha skipped away, calling, "Here, Mag Lawton, Mary Pinckney, come and play graces."

For a moment Lizzie and Leah stood watching the group as it formed, and admiring the graceful movements of the hoops as they flew from the fairylike wands of the girls. "That game is well called," said Lizzie, as Leah caught her arm again and said:

"Come, let's walk on." Then, after a pause, she continued, "I found your note, Lizzie, and I am sorry that I have such a telltale face; but I am unhappy, Lizzie; yes, I am miserable, and I cannot conceal it. I would not obtrude my sorrow upon others, but it is my face and not my tongue that betrays me."

"Do not think, Leah, I beg you, that I would seek to pry into the secret of your heart," responded Lizzie; "but I thought if you were in trouble, maybe I might in some way comfort you."

"I thank you, dear, dear Lizzie, for your sympathy"--and a tear fell from the lustrous lashes of the Jewess; "I thank you again and again," she continued, "but nothing you can do can alleviate my sorrow."

"Well, you can trust me for sympathy and love always, whether that will comfort you or not, Leah; be your trouble what it may."

"Mine is no sudden grief, Lizzie; it is a long, sad story, one that I have never felt at liberty to inflict upon any one's hearing, and yet, I have always found you so tender and so true, that when any additional sorrow comes to me my heart strangely turns to you for sympathy. I know not why. Can you tell me?"

"We always turn to those who love us, I think, in hours of darkness."

"Yes, Lizzie, but there is a peculiar yearning, in my heart for you, at times. I imagine it's akin to the feeling I should have for my mother, were she living. With this feeling at my heart, I long to look upon my mother's miniature which I once had, but which is now in my step-mother's possession, and to gaze upon the face that speaks such love to me, though her voice has so long been silent."

Lizzie, touched at Leah's pathetic words, turned and looked at her friend with a tender glance, and said, "Trust me, Leah, for that sympathy which you from some cause need, and unburden your aching heart to me, if you choose."

"But, there! the bell is ringing and we must go," said Leah abruptly. "Let's meet after school in the upper corridor, that overlooks the sea. I have something further to say to you."

"If you wish, dear Leah; and it's but a short two hours till dismission. Let's go."

Cloaked and hooded, the school-girls were all ready for departure after the three long, welcome strokes of the great clock; when Leah said, "It's growing chilly, Lizzie. Wrap your shawl closely around you, for it's cold out on the corridor. Come, let's go out at the rear door before it is locked."

Ascending a spiral staircase, the two girls reached the upper corridor that ran across the south side of the end wing of the building.

"Suppose Madam Truxton should come upon us, Lizzie, what would she think?" said Leah, as the two girls crouched down closer together at the end of the corridor.

"Nothing wrong, I guess, as we have our books; and perhaps we had better look over our French a minute. What do you say?"

"So we had, as it comes first in the morning," and bending their heads together the girls were silent for a time, pretending to study. At length Lizzie closed the book, and Leah began her story.

LEAH'S STORY.

"I shudder, Lizzie, when I think of unfolding the sad story of my life to you; and yet, I am impelled to do so by this hunger for sympathy that is so constantly gnawing at my heart. As I have told you before, my heart strangely turns to you in sorrow. In the three years that I have known you, and we have seen each other daily, I have never known you guilty of a single act or word that was unworthy--"

"Oh! Leah--"

"Do not interrupt me, Lizzie. You must hear my story now, though it shall be briefly told; and I have one request to make, my dear. It is, that you have charity for my faults, and pity for me in my many temptations." She continued:

"As you have known before, my mother died when I was a very little child, scarcely three years old. I remember her but very indistinctly. The woman who is now my father's wife, was his housekeeper in my mother's life-time. She, of course, came from the common walks of life, her father being a very poor butcher. How she ever became my father's wife, I do not know; but my old nurse used to intimate to me that it was by no honorable means. Be that as it may, he married her when I was four years of age; and from that date my miserable story begins. The first incident of my life after this second marriage which I remember most vividly was this. A year after my father's marriage to Rebecca, business of importance called him to England, and a long-cherished desire to see his aged parents took him to Bohemia, where they lived, after the business in Liverpool was transacted. How I fared while he was gone, I dimly remember; but well enough, I suppose, as I was still partially under the care and control of my faithful nurse, a colored woman of kind and tender heart.