They rose from the breakfast-table and looked at their wives.  Lysbet gave a little sob, and laid her head a moment upon her husband’s breast.  Katherine lifted her white face and whispered, with kisses, “Beloved one, go.  Night and day I will pray for you, and long for you.  My love, my dear one!”

There was hurry and tumult, and the stress of leave-taking was lightened by it.  Katherine held her husband’s hand till they stood at the open door.  Then he looked into her face, and down at his sword, with a meaning smile.  And her eyes dilated, and a vivid blush spread over her cheeks and throat, and she drew him back a moment, and passionately kissed him again; and all her grief was lost in love and triumph.  For, wound tightly around his sword-hilt, she saw—­though it was brown and faded—­her first, fateful love-token,—­The Bow of Orange Ribbon.

[Illustration:  Tail-piece]

POSTSCRIPT.

[QUOTATION FROM A LETTER DATED JULY 5, A.D. 1885.]

“Yesterday I went with my aunt to spend ‘the Fourth’ at the Hydes.  They have the most delightful place,—­a great stone house in a wilderness of foliage and beauty, and yet within convenient distance of the railroad and the river-boats.  Why don’t we build such houses now?  You could make a ball-room out of the hall, and hold a grand reception on the staircase.  Kate Hyde said the house is more than a hundred years old, and that the fifth generation is living in it.  I am sure there are pictures enough of the family to account for three hundred years; but the two handsomest, after all, are those of the builders.  They were very great people at the court of Washington, I believe.  I suppose it is natural for those who have ancestors to brag about them, and to show off the old buckles and fans and court-dresses they have hoarded up, not to speak of the queer bits of plate and china; and, I must say, the Hydes have a really delightful lot of such bric-a-brac.  But the strangest thing is the ‘household talisman.’  It is not like the luck of Eden Hall:  it is neither crystal cup, nor silver vase, nor magic bracelet, nor an old slipper.  But they have a tradition that the house will prosper as long as it lasts, and so this precious palladium is carefully kept in a locked box of carved sandal-wood; for it is only a bit of faded satin that was a love-token,—­a St. Nicholas Bow of Orange Ribbon.”