or fell into converse over the telegraphic headline,
and then the bugles pealed adjutant's call, the band crashed merrily
into "Hands Across the Sea," and the details of the twelve companies
came marching jauntily forth upon the green. The colonel, with soldierly
appreciation in his eyes, stood watching the sharp, snappy formation of
the line, the paper dangling unheeded from his thumb and forefinger,
while the surgeon, more alive to the news of the day than the niceties
of military duty, turned over the outer page, began to scan the
headlines of the inner column, as suddenly, impulsively, unthinkingly
startled the colonel by the exclamation "God!" Stone whirled about in
sudden anxiety. For a moment the doctor simply stared and read, then
glanced at the post commander, and, without a word, handed him the
sheet. Stone, too, stared, started, looked quickly into the surgeon's
face, and then said: "Let's get inside." So together these veterans of
their respective corps quit the field and the sight of men and boys and
went to confer within the depth of the vine-shaded veranda.

At that same moment the tall, gaunt form of Major Dwight was seen to
issue from the front doorway of the first quarters on the southward
line, the field officer's roomy house, and, looking neither to the right
nor the left, straight, stern and rigidly erect, he strode forth upon
the grassy parade, heading for the merry group about the ponies. The
band had ceased its spirited march music. The adjutant had assigned
officers and non-commissioned officers to their posts. The lieutenant
commanding had ordered "Inspection arms!" and once again the strain of
sweet music swept across the green carpeted quadrangle, and Marion Ray,
seated on her piazza far down the line, chatting with a neighbor who had
just dropped in, lifted her head and listened. It was one of Margaret's
old favorites, a song she used to sing and loved to sing, a song played
by many an army band for many a year, and it seemed never to grow
wearisome or stale--"Happy Be Thy Dreams." With her thoughts all of
Margaret and her eyes following her thoughts, she arose, stepped to the
rail, looking for little Jim, whom she had recently seen but seldom, and
then caught sight of the major a long distance away, bearing straight
and swift upon the romping group at the westward end of the parade.
Barely twenty minutes before, as she was giving Sandy his coffee, for
Sandy had come down late after a restles