me
another for the way he goes."

"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the General quickly. "We will
join the ladies. Harry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the way!"

As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass. His face was pale and
his lips trembled.

"May I propose a toast, General Dean?"

"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.

"I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now,
and might have died there for all I know--my friend and, thank God! my
kinsman--Major Buford."

It was irregular and hardly in good taste, but the boy had waited till
the ladies were gone, and it touched the Major that he should want to
make such a public acknowledgment that there should be no false colors
in the flag he meant henceforth to bear.

The startled guests drank blindly to the confused Major, though they
knew not why, but as the lads disappeared the lawyer asked:

"Who is that boy, Major?"

Outside, the same question had been asked among the ladies and the same
story told. The three girls remembered him vaguely, they said, and when
Chad reappeared, in the eyes of the poetess at least, the halo of
romance floated above his head.

She was waiting for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook
her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old
Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind
her, Snowball, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a
welcome. The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms
mysteriously twined about one anther's waists, and the poetess walked
down toward them with the three lads, Richard Hunt following. Chad
could not know how it happened, but, a moment later, Dan was walking
away with Nellie Hunt one way; Harry with Elizabeth Morgan the other;
the Lieutenant had Margaret alone, and Miss Overstreet was leading him
away, raving meanwhile about the beauty of field and sky. As they went
toward the gate he could not help flashing one look toward the pair
under the fir tree. An amused smile was playing under the Lieutenant's
beautiful mustache, his eyes were dancing with mischief, and Margaret
was blushing with anything else than displeasure.

"Oho!" he said, as Chad and his companion passed on. "Sits the wind in
that corner? Bless me, if looks could kill, I'd have a happy death here
at your feet, Mistress Margaret. SEE the young man! It's the second
time he has almost slain me."

Chad co