and if this sort of
thing keeps up I'll be a hundred and ninety-nine next week."

St. Clair also awoke and sat up. In some miraculous manner he had
restored his uniform to order and he was as neat and precise as usual.

"You two talk too much," he said. "I was in the middle of a beautiful
dream, when I heard you chattering away."

"What was your dream, Arthur?" asked Harry.

"I was in St. Andrew's Hall in Charleston, dancing with the most
beautiful girl you ever saw. I don't know who she was, I didn't identify
her in my dream. There were lots of other beautiful girls there dancing
with fellows like myself, and the roses were everywhere, and the music
rose and fell like the song of angels, and I was so happy and--I
awoke to find myself here on a hillside with a ragged army that's been
marching and fighting for days and weeks, and which, for all I know,
will keep it up for years and years longer."

"I've a piece of advice for you, Arthur," said Langdon.

"What is it?"

"Quit dreaming. It's a bad habit, especially when you're in war. The
dream is sure to be better than the real thing. You won't be dancing
again in Charleston for a long time, nor will I. All those beautiful
girls you were dreaming about but couldn't name will be without partners
until we're a lot older than we are now."

Langdon spoke with a seriousness very uncommon in him, and lay back
again on the ground, where he began to chew a grass stem meditatively.

"Go back to sleep, boys, you'll need it," said Harry lightly. "Our next
march is to be a thousand miles, and we're to have a battle at every
milestone."

"You mean that as a joke, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it came
true," said Langdon, as he closed his eyes again.

Harry went on and found the two colonels sitting in the shadow of a
stone fence. One of them had his arm in a sling, but he assured Harry
the wound was slight. They gave him a glad and paternal welcome.

"In the kind of campaign we're waging," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot, "I
assume that anybody is dead until I see him alive. Am I not right, eh,
Hector?"

"Assuredly you're right, Leonidas," replied Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire. "Our young men don't get frightened because they don't have
time to think about it. Before we can get excited over the battle in
which we are engaged we've begun the next one. It is also a matter
of personal pride to me that one of the best bodies of troops in the
service of General