use of it in his absence.

It was in this house that the little colony of friends gathered,
everyone bringing to the dinner what he could. Colonel Leonidas Talbot
and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire occupied the great sitting
room on the ground floor, and here the dinner would be spread, as a part
of the dining-room had been shot away and was still wet from snow and
rain.

But the sitting room gladdened the eye. A heavy imported carpet covered
the central portion of the polished oaken floor. Old family portraits
lined its walls and those of the parlor adjoining it. Curtains hung
at the windows. They were more or less discolored by smoke and other
agencies, but they were curtains. All about the chamber were signs of
wealth and cultivation, and a great fire of wood was burning in a huge
chimney under a beautifully carved oaken mantelpiece.

The room seemed to remain almost as it had been left by the owner,
save that two one-hundred-pound cannon balls, fired by the Union guns
into Fredericksburg, were lying by either side of the door.

"Tickets, sir," said Langdon, as Harry appeared at the door.

Harry drew from under his cloak two boxes of sardines which he had taken
from a deserted sutler's wagon on the field of Fredericksburg. He
handed them to Langdon, who said:

"Pass in, most welcome guest."

Harry was the first arrival, but Dalton was next.

"Tickets double price to all Virginia Presbyterians," said Langdon.

"Instead of a double ticket here are two singles," said Dalton, as he
drew from under his cloak two fine dressed chickens. "Don't these take
me in?"

"They certainly do. Go in on the jump, Dalton."

The next arrival was Sherburne, who brought a five-pound bag of coffee.
Then came the two colonels together, one with the half of a side of
bacon, and the other with a twenty-pound bag of flour. More followed,
bringing like tickets that were perfectly good, and it seemed that all
the invited ticket holders were in, when a big black man on a big black
horse rode up and saluted Langdon respectfully. He held out a pass.

"This pass am from Gen'ral Jackson," he said.

"Am it?" said Langdon, looking at the pass, "Yes, it am."

"Is you the orf'cer in command of this yere house?" asked the colored
man, his wide mouth parting in an enormous grin that showed his
magnificent white teeth.

"For the present I am, Sir Knight of the Dark but Kind Countenance.
What wouldst thou?"

The man scra