best friends have perished
back there in those inhospitable Pennsylvania hills, and while the band
was playing it made me think of the homes they will never see any more!
Don't think I'm effusive and that I show grief too much, but my heart has
been very heavy! Alas, for the brave lads!"

"Come, come, de Langeais," said Harry, putting his hand on his shoulder.
"You've no need to apologize for sorrow. God knows we all have enough
of it, but a lot of us are still alive and here's an army ready to fight
again, whenever the enemy says the word."

"True! True!" exclaimed de Langeais, changing at once from shadow to
sunshine. "And when we're back in Virginia we'll turn our faces once
more to our foe!"

He took a step or two on the grass in time to the music which was now
that of a dance, and the brilliant beams of the setting sun showed a face
without a care. Invincible youth and the invincible gayety of the part
of the South that was French were supreme again. Dalton, looking at him,
shook his Presbyterian head. Yet his eyes expressed admiration.

"I know your feelings," said Harry to the Virginian.

"Well, what are they?"

"You don't approve of de Langeais' lightness, which in your stern code
you would call levity, and yet you envy him possession of it. You don't
think it's right to be joyous, without a care, and yet you know it would
be mighty pleasant. You criticize de Langeais a little, but you feel it
would be a gorgeous thing to have that joyous spirit of his."

Dalton laughed.

"You're pretty near the truth," he said. "I haven't known de Langeais
so very long, but if he were to get killed I'd feel that I had lost a
younger brother."

"So would I."

Two immaculate youths, riding excellent horses, approached them, and
favored them with a long and supercilious stare.

"Can the large fair person be Lieutenant Kenton of the staff of the
commander-in-chief?" asked St. Clair.

"It can be and it is, although we did not think to see him again so soon,"
replied Happy Tom Langdon, "and the other--I do not allude to de Langeais--
is that spruce and devout young man, Lieutenant George Dalton, also of
the staff of the commander-in-chief."

"Why do we find them in such humble plight, walking on weary feet in a
path beside the road?"

"For the most excellent reason in the world, Arthur."

"And what may that reason be, Tom?"

"Because at last they have come down to their proper station in life,
just as s