hly," answered Harold,
"that you know so well to blend your soldiership with kindness. I am
entirely at your disposition, sir, having only to apologize to Miss
Weems for the deprivation of her contemplated ride."

"Oh, no, we must not lose our ride," said Oriana. "It is perhaps the
last we shall enjoy together, and such a lovely afternoon. I am sure
that Captain Haralson is too gallant to interrupt our excursion."

She turned to him with an arch smile, but he looked serious as he
replied:

"Alas! Miss Weems, our gallantry receives some rude rebuffs in the harsh
school of the soldier. It grieves me to mar your harmless recreation,
but even that mortification I must endure when it comes in the strict
line of my duty."

"But your duty does not forbid you to take a canter with us this
charming afternoon. Now put away that military sternness, which does not
become you at all, and help me to mount my pretty Nelly, who is getting
impatient to be off. And so am I. Come, you will get into camp in due
season, for we will go only as far as the Run, and canter all the way."

She took his arm, and he assisted her to the saddle, won into
acquiescence by her graceful obstinacy, and, in fact, seeing but little
harm the tufted hills rolled into one another like the waves of a
swelling sea, their crests tipped with the slant rays of the descending
sun, and their graceful slopes alternating among purple shadows and
gleams of floating light.

"It is indeed so beautiful," answered Harold, "that I should deem you
might be content to live there as of old, without inviting the terrible
companionship of Mars."

"We do not invite it," said the young captain. "Leave us in peaceful
possession of our own, and no war cries shall echo among those hills. If
Mars has driven his chariot into our homes, he comes at your bidding, an
unwelcome intruder, to be scourged back again."

"At our bidding! No. The first gun that was fired at Sumter summoned
him, and if he should leave his foot-prints deep in your soil, you have
well earned the penalty."

"It will cost you, to inflict it, many such another day's work as that
at Manassas a month ago."

The taunt was spoken hastily, and the young Southron colored as if
ashamed of his discourtesy, and added:

"Forgive me my ungracious speech. It was my first field, sir, and I am
wont to speak of it too boastingly. I shall become more modest, I hope,
when I shall have a better right to be a boaster."

"