The little party of visitors in the general’s personal tent made a striking contrast to that assembled under the official canvas. In the latter, seated on camp stools and candle boxes or braced against the tent poles were nearly a dozen officers, all in the sombre dark blue regulation uniform, several in riding boots and spurs, some even wearing the heavy, frogged overcoat; all but two, juniors of the staff, men who stood on the shady side of forty, four of the number wearing on their shoulders the silver stars of generals of division or brigade, and among their thinning crops of hair the silver strands that told of years of service. One man alone, the commanding general, was speaking; all the others listened in respectful silence. In the gloom of that late, fog-shrouded afternoon a lantern or two would have been welcome, but the conference had begun while it was still “Merciful powers!” exclaimed the chief. “I had forgotten all about those people. They must have been here twenty minutes.” “Sixty-five, sir, by the watch,” said a saturnine-looking “They ought to go, then,” was the placid suggestion of a third officer, a man with keen eyes, thin, almost ascetic, face, but there twitched a quaint humor about the lines of his lips. “That visit’s past the retiring age.” And then another peal of merriment from the adjoining tent put stop to conversation. “They don’t lack for entertainers,” hazarded a staff officer as soon as he could make himself heard. “The solemn-looking Gothamite who came with them must have slipped out.” “It seems he knows Colonel Armstrong,” said the chief thoughtfully. “I sent for him an hour ago, and he may be piloting Mr. Prime around camp, looking up the runaway.” “Another case?” asked a brigade commander with a shrug of his shoulders. “Another case,” answered the general, with a sigh. “It isn’t always home troubles that drive them to it. This boy had everything a doting father could give him. What on earth could make him bolt and enlist for the war?” No one answered for a moment. Then the officer with the humorous twinkle about the eyes and the twitch at the lip corners, bent forward, placed his elbows on his knees, his fingers tip to tip, gazed dreamily at the floor, and sententiously said: “Girl.” Whereupon his next neighbor, a stocky, thickset man in the uniform of a brigadier, never moving eye, head or hand, managed to bring a sizable foot in heavy riding boot almost savagely upon the slim gaiter of the humorist, who suddenly started and flushed to the temples, glanced quickly at the chief, and then as quickly back to the floor, his blue eyes clouded in genuine distress. The general’s gray face had seemed to grow grayer in the gloom. Again there came, like a rippling echo, the chorus of merry laughter from the adjoining tent, only it seemed a trifle subdued, possibly as though one or two of the merry-makers had joined less heartily. With sudden movement the general rose: “Well, I’ve kept you long enough,” he said. “Let the three And then the group dissolved. One or two of the number looked back, half-hesitating, at the entrance of the tent, but the chief had turned again to the littered table before him, and seating himself, rested his gray head in the hand nearest his visitors. It was as though he wished to conceal his face. One of the last to go—the thin-faced soldier with the twinkling blue eyes, hung irresolutely behind the chief a moment as though he had it in his mind to speak, then turned and fairly tiptoed out, leaving the camp commander to the society of a single staff officer, and to the gathering darkness. “Kindly say to Mr. Prime, or his friends, that I will join them in a moment,” said the former, presently, without so much as uplifting head or eye, and the aide-de-camp left as noiselessly as his predecessor, the humorist. But when he was gone and “The Chief” sat alone, the sound of merry chat and laughter still drifted in with the mist at the half-opened “No light just yet, orderly. I’ll call you—in a moment. Just close the tent.” At his hand, he needed no light to find it, lay a little packet that had been passed in to him with the mail while the council was still in session. It was stoutly wrapped, tightly corded, and profusely sealed, but with the sharp point of an eraser the general slit the fastenings, tore off the wrapper, and felt rather than saw, that a bundle of letters, rolled in tissue paper and tied with ribbon, ribbon long since faded and wrinkled, lay within. This he carefully placed in a large-sized military letter Once again the laughter, the gay young voices, rang from the other tent. All over camp, far and near, from the limits of the park to the very slope of the height at the north, the evening bugles were calling by thousands the thronging soldiery to mess or roll call. Slowly the General rose, drew on his overcoat, and in another moment, under the sloping visor of his forage-cap, with eyes that twinkled behind their glasses, with a genial smile softening every feature, his fine soldierly face peered in on the There was nothing in such a face as his to put a check to fun and merriment, yet, all on a sudden, the laughter died away. Three young gallants in soldier garb sprang to their feet and faced him with appeal and explanation in their speaking eyes, although only one of their number At least any one would have said they were four blithe girls, innocent of graver responsibilities than social calls and dinner or dance engagements, for never looked four young women so free from the cares of this world as did those who were picturesquely grouped about the General’s camp table and under the brilliant reflector of the General’s lamp, but the plain gold circlet on the slender finger of the merriest and noisiest and smallest of the four, and the fact that she had nothing to say to the elder of the three attendant officers except in the brief, indifferent tones of assured proprietorship, and very much to say to the others, told a different story. The General’s manner lost none of its kindness, even though a close observer would have seen that his face lost a little of its light as he recognized in the evident leader of the revels and mistress of the situation the wife “Bless your dear old heart!” exclaimed the little lady, springing to her feet, facing him with indomitable smiles and thrusting forward two slender, white, bejeweled hands. “No—don’t say you disapprove! Don’t scold! Don’t do anything but sit right down here and have a cup of your own delicious tea—(Frank, some boiling water)—that no one makes for you as I do—you’ve owned it many a time. And then we’re all going in to the Palace for dinner and then to the theatre, and I’ll tell you all about it between the courses or between the acts. Oh, you poor dear! I ought to have come before—you’ve been working yourself to death!” And by this time, resolutely pulling, she had towed the General to a chair, and into this, his favorite leather-armed, canvas-backed, hickory-framed companion of many a year, she deftly dropped him and then, giving him no chance for a word, gayly pirouetting, she seized one after another upon each member of the party “This, my honored General, first and foremost, is Miss Mildred Prime, daughter of a thousand earls is she, yet one vastly to be desired, though I say it who should not, for she hails from New York, which is enough to make me hate her, whereas we’ve just sworn an eternal friendship. You’ve only casually met her and her folks before, but I can tell you all about them. You should have put Frank at the head of your Intelligence Bureau, General. He’d never find out anything, but I would. We came on the same train together all the way from Ogden.” A tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired, oval-faced girl, coloring slightly in evident embarassment over these odd army ways, courtesied smilingly to the General and seemed to be pleading “This,” hurried on the voluble little woman, seizing another feminine wrist, “is Miss Cherry Langton—Cherry Ripe we call her at home this summer, the dearest girl that ever lived except myself, and one you’ll simply delight in—as you do in me—when you get to know her. She is, as you have often been told and have probably forgotten, the only good-looking member of Frank’s family—his first cousin. She was moping her heart out after all the nice young men in Denver went to the wars, and withering on the stem until I told her she should go too, when she blossomed and blushed with joy as you see her now, sir. Cherry, make your manners.” Cherry, whose name well described her, was only waiting for a chance, laughing the while at the merry flow of her chaperon’s words, and, at the first break, stepped quickly forward and placed her hand frankly in the outstretched palm of her host, then glanced eagerly over her shoulder as though she would say: “But you must see her,” and her bright “And this,” said Mrs. Frank Garrison, bravely, yet with a trifle less confidence of manner, with indeed a faint symptom of hesitancy, “is Miss Amy Lawrence,” and in extending her little hand to take that of the most retiring of the three girls, only the finger tips and thumb seemed to touch. Miss Lawrence came quickly forward, and waiting for no description, bowed with quiet grace and dignity to the chief and, smiling a bit gravely, said: “Uncle left word that he would soon return, General, but he has been gone with Colonel Armstrong nearly an hour. I hope we have not taken too great a liberty,” and her glance turned to the substantial tea service on the rude camp table. “Oh, I’m responsible for that—and for any and every iniquity here committed, solely because I know our General too well to believe he would allow famishing damsels to faint for lack of sustenance.” It was Mrs. Garrison, of “I’ll forgive anything but more chatter,” said he, with a placid smile, “provided you give me some tea at once. Then I should be glad to know how you all happened to meet here.” “My doing entirely, General. (Frank, another cup—quick!) Cherry came with me to surprise my husband—an easy thing to do—I’m always doing it. We found him here, by your orders, striving to entertain these two charming damsels—the last thing on earth he is capable of doing, however valuable he may be with orders She seized Miss Langton’s slender umbrella and, waving it over her curly little head, pirouetted again in triumphant gayety. The General was thoughtfully sipping his tea and studying her as she chattered and danced. When she paused a moment for breath he again held up his hand. “Colonel Armstrong went with Mr. Prime, did he?” “With every assurance that the prodigal A soldierly, middle-aged officer, in dripping forage cap and rain coat, stepped quickly in and lowered the flap. “We found—the soldier referred to; Colonel Armstrong has been most kind; but—it wasn’t your brother at all, my child.” |