beautiful. Every one of
you looks like an angel, just lowered gently from Heaven."

"If you're not merely a flatterer then it's long absence that gives
charm. I assure you, Lieutenant Kenton, that we're very, very common
clay. You should see us eat."

"I'll get you an ice at once."

"Oh, I don't mean that. I mean substantial things!"

"A healthy appetite doesn't keep a girl from being an angel."

"When men marry us they find out that we're not angels."

"The word 'angel' is with me merely a figure of speech. I don't want any
real angel. I want my wife, if I ever marry, to be thoroughly human."

Harry's progress was rapid. A handsome figure and face, and an ingenuous
manner made him a favorite. After midnight he wandered into a room where
older men were smoking and talking. They were mostly officers, some of
high rank, one a general, and they talked of that which they could never
get wholly from their minds, the war. All knew Harry, and, as he wanted
fresh air, they gave him a place by a window which looked upon a small
court.

Harry was tired. In dancing he had been compelled to bring into play
muscles long unused, and he luxuriated in the cushioned chair, while the
pleasant night breeze blew upon him. They were discussing Lee's probable
plans to meet Meade, who would certainly follow him in time across
the Potomac. They spoke with weight and authority, because they were
experienced men who had been in many battles, and they were here on
furlough, most of them recovering from wounds.

Harry heard them, but their words were like the flowing of a river.
He paid no heed. They did not bring the war back to him. He was
thinking of the music and of the brilliant faces of the girls whom he
loved collectively. What that Lawrence girl had said was true. He was a
Virginian as well as a Kentuckian, and the Kentuckians and Virginians
were all one big family. All those pretty Virginia girls were his
cousins. It might run to the thirty-second degree, but they were his
cousins just the same, and he would claim them with confidence.

He smiled and his eyelids drooped a little. It was rather dark outside,
and he was looking directly into the court in which rosebushes and tall
flowering plants grew. A shadow passed. He did not see whence it came
or went, but he sat up and laughed at himself for dozing and conjuring up
phantoms when he was at his first real ball in ages.

All the civilians had gone out a