d beside Mildred, "take courage and keep a good heart! The very day
I often prayed to see has come--and it has come sooner than you promised
it should. Here I am in the field, amongst men, and no play-game is it,
either, to keep us busy, but downright earnest battle. And then, dear
sister, you are here to look on--isn't that a piece of good luck?"

"Ah, brother, I could talk to you with a boastful tongue when all
around us was peace and security. I cannot exhort you now. If I dare, I
would beg you to stay by my side. I have need of your comfort, and
shudder with a chilly fear. Henry, that small hand of yours can do no
service to-day--and in truth, I cannot bear to see you exposed to
danger."

"In tears, sister! Come now, this is not like you. Hasn't Arthur fought
many a day and often? And didn't you set him on, with good brave words
for it?"

"I was not there to see him," interrupted Mildred.

"Well, sister, I must get to my post," said Henry. "I serve as
aide-de-camp, and Horse Shoe is to help me. By-the-by, Mildred, the
sergeant is uncommonly silent and busy to-day. He smells this battle
like an old soldier, and I heard him give a few hints to Campbell,
concerning the marching up yonder hill:--he told him the column should
not display until they got near the top, as Ferguson has no cannon; and
the Colonel took it very gladly. Horse Shoe, moreover, thinks we will
beat them--and the men have great dependence on what he says. I shall
not lose sight of him to-day."

"For Heaven's sake, Henry," exclaimed Mildred, "my dear brother, do not
think of following the sergeant! I cannot part with you," she added,
with great earnestness; "it is an awful time for brother and sister to
separate--stay with me."

The cadet turned a look upon his sister of surprise, at the new light in
which her present fears represented her.

"I thought, Mildred," he said, "you were brave. Hav'n't we come all this
way from home to assist Butler? And are you now, for the first
time--just when we are going to pluck him from the midst of the wolves
upon that mountain--are you now to weep and play the coward, sister?"

"Go, go!" said Mildred, as she covered her eyes with her hand, "but,
dear Henry, remember you have a weak arm and a slender frame, and are
not expected to take upon you the duties of a man."

"Besides," said Mary Musgrove, who had been a silent and perplexed
witness of this scene, and who now put in her word of counsel, out of
the