ur headquarters while you are here.'
He thanked her and said he'd ride forward with a cavalry orderly and
inspect the place. The rest of us waited while he and the orderly rode
into the grounds, the lady going on ahead.

"The general wouldn't take the house. He said he didn't like to see so
fine a place trodden up by young men in muddy military boots. Besides,
he and his staff would disturb the inmates, and he didn't want that to
happen. At last he picked the hunting lodge, and as he and the orderly
rode back through the gate to the grounds, the orderly said: 'General,
do you feel wholly pleased with what you have chosen?' 'It suits me
entirely,' replied General Jackson. 'I'm going to make my headquarters
in that hunting lodge.' 'I'm very glad of that, sir, very glad indeed.'
'Why?' asked General Jackson. 'Because it's my house,' replied the
orderly, 'and my wife and I would have felt greatly disappointed if you
had gone elsewhere.'"

"And so all this splendid place belongs to an orderly?" said Harry.

"Funny you didn't hear that story," said Dalton. "Most of us have,
but I suppose everybody took it for granted that you knew it. As you
say, that grand place belongs to one of our orderlies. After all,
we're a citizen army, just as the great Roman armies when they were
at their greatest were citizen armies, too."

"Ah, here comes the general now," said Harry, "and he looks embarrassed,
as he always does after so much cheering. A stranger would think from
the way he acts that he's the least conspicuous of our generals, and if
you read the reports of his victories you'd think that he had less than
anybody else to do with them."

General Jackson, followed by an orderly, cantered up. The orderly took
the horse and the general went into the house, followed by the two young
staff officers. They knew that he was likely to plunge at once into
work, and were ready to do any service he needed.

"I don't think I'll want you boys," said the general in his usual kindly
tone, "at least not for some time. So you can go out and enjoy the
sunshine and warmth, of which we have had so little for a long time."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry, but he added hastily:

"Here come some officers, sir."

Jackson glanced through the window of the hunting lodge and caught sight
of a waving plume, just as its wearer passed through the gate.

"That's Stuart," he said, with an attempt at severity in his tone,
although his smiling