drink a glass of elder wine and eat a slice of rice cake made after the fashion of the mother-land?"

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Why, now!"—the broad red face glowed with pleasure and astonishment "that's the first civil word I have heard this day! Madam, I do assure you, that wakes the heart in me and makes me loath to take thy hospitality and do my soldier's errand here."

A flush of surprise almost matching the soldier's had swept over Margaret's face at her grandmother's words. But now she stepped forward courteously.

"Nay," she said, setting a rush-bottomed chair for him in the cool breeze of the doorway, "thou mayst taste my mother's wine, for thou art weary and a wayfarer. Later, if needs must, we can talk of war."

queue (kū): hair in the form of a pig tail.-cipher (si' fer): a secret message written in a private alphabet or special characters.-half door: long ago house doors were made to open in two parts and the upper half was often left open.-I'm fain: I should like.-loath: unwilling.

THE BULB OF THE CRIMSON TULIP

PART II

The soldier dropped into the chair, with his clanking spurs rattling on the bricks, and drank thankfully the great draught of water Margaret dipped from the well-curb bucket and brought to him.

"Ah, that takes the blaze of the sun out of the blood!" he said. His face softened as he watched her prepare the cake and wine for him.

When she placed them before him, the grandmother said gently, ""Tis wine, sir, of the real English smack, being a recipe of my mother's; and I hope thou'lt like the cake."

"I like them well," he growled, as the spicy wine fell clearly into the glass, "but not to repay thee with saucy questions."

The old woman sighed softly. "Sir, if saucy questions be thy duty, do not shirk aught of it. Hospitality is a duty, too."

"I am looking for a lad who should have ridden by here on a roan horse last eventide."

"One of thine own men?" asked Margaret steadily, though with an effort.

The soldier stared at her.

"Beshrew me, no," he said, laughing. "Do we waylay our own messengers?"

"Then art thou not tapping at folly's gate to ask us to betray ours?" she returned.

He surveyed her slowly, from the white cap to the tiny buckled slippers, and said soberly, "Lass, all the folk of this town are not rebels; neither must an answer be always yea or nay to be useful."

While she set the plate and glass upon the dresser, he stared gloomily out into the sunshine.

"Hast thou kith or kin fighting against the king?" he asked.

"Yes," said Margaret, standing by her grandmoth

er's chair; "my father and my brother. Sir, had I seen twenty horsemen riding by, thou knowest I would not tell thee!"

He looked sharply at her again under his bushy brows and shook his head.

"What if I tell thee I must search thy dwelling? he said, scanning her face.

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Our

My grandmother is old, and I am young. doors lie open to thee. Naught could hinder thee. Neither of us would ask thee not to. If that be thy present duty, follow it; yet it sets not well with thy question."

Margaret swung open the porch door, where the scarlet tulip drooped its head; and the soldier glanced past it, beyond the double rows of tasseled currant bushes, to the door of the little barn. A sound of hoof beats stopping in front directed his glance to the highway again.

Dame Ross slowly dismounted from Old Dobs at the horse block; and Margaret, looking out, said, "It

is my mother." She glanced at her grandmother.

"Mother has been to mill, sir," she volunteered to the soldier.

"Thou ridest thine own grist to mill, eh?" he said, with returning good humor. Then, as the dame put out her hand for the heavy sack, he suddenly strode down to the garden gate and, sweeping a low bow to the startled woman, said, "May I not put this on the kitchen floor for thee, or in the stable?"

Mrs. Ross turned herself to Dobs' bridle to hide the deadly whiteness of her face. The soldier stood there, smiling cheerfully.

"If thou wilt put the flour on the kitchen floor I will thank thee. It is much courtesy from a stranger. I knew not that my roof entertained a guest of thy coat," she said at length.

“Nay, I'm not of thy convictions," laughed the soldier, laying the sack upon his scarlet shoulder; "but my mother taught me courtesy to a woman ere the king taught me soldiering."

Margaret met her mother upon the threshold. "I am so glad thou art come," she said, mutely reading her face, as she laid her hand on her mother's bonnet strings to undo them. "I feared thou wouldst not return in time for me to go to Cicely's to drink birthday tea with her. Mother, our guest is a wayfaring soldier." She looked at him apologetically for this poor introduction.

The dame felt the scrutiny of a keen pair of eyes fixed upon her face.

"Madam," he said, "my errand is to ask a question. Hast thou seen a lad on a roan horse riding by thy doorway?"

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Which way should the lad have been riding?" asked the dame, tying on her house apron; "for, though the highway is a broad one, it leads as easily to Elizabethtown as to Morristown. Riders choose

both ways to do their galloping. Dost thou take us for Tories, to ask us such a question? I wonder at thee!"

The soldier laughed restlessly. "I was not built to prowl in cottage gardens," he said uneasily, picking up his whip from the floor.

Margaret had slipped out and tethered Old Dobs to the pear tree. Now she came in by the back porch door, calmly carrying her potted crimson tulip.

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Mother," she said, placing the flower upon the table and reaching for her straw bonnet, "tis late to visit Cicely, but I think I will go, as I promised. I see shower caps rising out of the west, and I want to get the tulip there before the rain."

""Tis a bonny flower," said the soldier, lifting the pot and sniffing the blossom. "Dost thou ride to a birthday feast?"

"Only to carry a token to a friend," she replied, looking up at him, standing there with the tulip in his arms.

The dame had assented to Margaret's request, and now sat down to her knitting. A waft of cool, scented, mountain air suddenly swayed the white curtain of a west window.

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"I sniff a shower in that breeze," said Margaret. Sir, I must go. Good day to you"; and she reached for her flower.

"Not so fast," he said, smiling upon her. "I must