ually becoming tremendous, the guns tuning up by
batteries. There was, however, as yet, no platoon firing distinguishable
through the sustained crackle of the fusillade; columns of dust, hanging
above fields and woodlands, marked the courses of every northern road
where wagons and troops were already moving west and south; the fog from
the cannon turned the rising sun to a pulsating, cherry-tinted globe.

There was no bird music now from the orchard; here and there a scared
oriole or robin flashed through the trees, winging its frightened way
out of pandemonium.

The cavalry horses of the escort hung their heads, as though dully
enduring the uproar; the horses of the field ambulances parked near the
orchard were being backed into the shafts; the band of an infantry
regiment, instruments flashing dully, marched up, halted, deposited
trombone, clarion and bass drum on the grass and were told off as
stretcher-bearers by a smart, Irish sergeant, who wore his cap over one
ear.

The shock of the cannonade was terrific; the Special Messenger,
buttoning her fresh linen, winced as window and door quivered under the
pounding uproar. Then, dressed at last, she opened the shaking blinds
and, seating herself by the window, laid her riding jacket across her
knees.

There were rents and rips in sleeve and body, but she was not going to
sew. On the contrary, she felt about with delicate, tentative fingers,
searching through the loosened lining until she found what she was
looking for, and, extracting it, laid it on her knees--a photograph, in
a thin gold oval, covered with glass.

The portrait was that of a young man--thin, quaintly amused, looking out
of the frame at her from behind his spectacles. The mustache appeared
to be slighter, the hair a trifle longer than the mustache and hair worn
by the signal officer, Captain West. Otherwise, it was the man. And hope
died in her breast without a flicker.

Sitting there by the shaking window, with the daguerreotype in her
clasped hands, she looked at the summer sky, now all stained and
polluted by smoke; the uproar of the guns seemed to be shaking her
reason, the tumult within her brain had become chaos, and she scarcely
knew what she did as, drawing on both gauntlets and fastening her soft
riding hat, she passed through the house to the porch, where the staff
officers were already climbing into their saddles. But the general,
catching sight of her face at the door, swung his horse