He cared nothing whatever for such prejudices as the ladies surely had. They were natural and inevitable. They belonged to the order of things. They were to be expected. It was their absence in the case of Captain Jar vis that worried him. He could see that these prejudices were in full bloom, so far as he was concerned, and that his presence was tolerated only because he could be of some possible service to Jarvis.
While dressing Jack's wounded shoulder, which, under the circumstances, was a tedious operation, Dr. Pruden noticed what beautiful hands Flora had. She was helping him the best she could, and in that way her hands were very much in evidence. He observed, too, that these beautiful hands had a knack of stroking the wounded man's hair, and once he saw such an unmistakable caress expressed in the pressure of the fingers that he glanced quickly at her face. The surgeon's glance was so frankly inquisitive that Flora blushed in spite of herself; and it was the rosiest of blushes, too, for she instinctively knew that the man suspected her to be desperately in love with a Yankee captain after the acquaintance of only a few hours. Then she
