uzz before
my face I wouldn't brush him away for fear of hurting him. The universe
and I would be at peace with each other."

"Hear him! O, hear him!" exclaimed Happy Tom. "Old Arthur grows
dithyrambic and hexametrical. He fairly distills the essence of
highfalutin poetry."

"I don't know that he's so far fetched," said sober Dalton. "I feel a
good deal that way myself. I suppose, Thomas Langdon, that the colors of
the world depend upon one's own eyes. What I call green may appear to
you like the color of blue to me. Now, Arthur really sees all these
things that he's telling about, because he has the eye of the mind with
which to see them. I've quit saying that people don't see things,
because I don't see 'em myself."

"Good for you, Professor," said Langdon. "That's quite a lecture you
gave me, long though not windy, and I accept it. Those Elysian fields
that Arthur was painting are real and he's going to have his enchanted
week as he calls it. Arthur is a poet, sure enough."

"I have written a few little verses which were printed in the Charleston
Mercury," said St. Clair.

"What's this? What's this?" asked a mellow voice. "Can it be possible
that young gentlemen are discussing poetry between battles and with the
enemy in sight?"

It was Colonel Leonidas Talbot, coming down the trench, and Lieutenant
Colonel Hector St. Hilaire was just behind him. The young officers rose
and saluted promptly, but they knew there was no reproof in Colonel
Talbot's tone.

"We had to do it, sir," said Harry respectfully. "Something struck
Arthur here, and like a fountain he gushed suddenly into poetry. He had
a most wonderful vision of the Elysian fields and of himself wandering
through them for a week, knee deep in flowers, and playing the softest
of music on a guitar."

"He's put that in about the guitar," protested St. Clair. "I never
mentioned such a thing, but all the rest is true."

"Well, if I had my way," said the colonel, "you should have a guitar, too,
if you wanted it, and I like that idea of yours about a week in the
Elysian fields. We'll join you there and we'll all walk around among
the flowers, and Hector's relative, that wonderful musician, young De
Langeais, shall play to us on his violin, and maybe the famous Stonewall
will come walking to us through the flowers, and he'll have with him
Albert Sidney Johnston, and Turner Ashby and all the great ones that have
gone."

The colonel stopped,