ade a brave show to these soldiers
who were used so long only to the light of their fires and the moon and
stars.

Before these lights people were passing and repassing, and the sounds
of pleasant voices reached their ears. But they were stopped by four
figures just emerging from the shadows. The four were Colonel Leonidas
Talbot, just returned from Richmond, Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire,
Lieutenant Arthur St. Clair, and Lieutenant Thomas Langdon, all arrayed
with great care and bearing themselves haughtily. Sherburne and
St. Clair cast quick glances at each other. But each remained content,
because the taste of each was gratified.

The meeting was most friendly. Harry and Dalton were very glad to see
Colonel Talbot, whom they had missed very much, but Harry detected at
once a note of anxiety in the voice of each colonel.

"Hector," said Colonel Talbot, "I shall certainly dance. What, go
to Jeb Stuart's ball and not dance, when the fair and bright young
womanhood of Virginia is present? And I a South Carolinian! What
would they think of my gallantry, Hector, if I did not?"

"It is certainly fitting, Leonidas. I used to be a master myself of
all the steps, waltz and gavotte and the Virginia reel and the others.
Once, when I was only twenty, I went to New Orleans to visit my cousins,
the de Crespignys, and many of them there were, four brothers, with
seven or eight children apiece, mostly girls; and 'pon my soul, Leonidas,
for the two months I was gone I did little but dance. What else could
one do when he had about twenty girl cousins, all of dancing age?
We danced in New Orleans and we danced out on the great plantation of
Louis de Crespigny, the oldest of the brothers, and all the neighbors
for miles around danced with us. There was one of my cousins, a third
cousin only she was, Flora de Crespigny, just seventeen years of age,
but a beautiful girl, Leonidas, a most beautiful girl--they ripen fast
down there. Once at the de Crespigny plantation I danced all day and
all the night following, mostly with her. Young Gerard de Langeais,
her betrothed, was furious with jealousy, and just after the dawn,
neither of us having yet slept, we fought with swords behind the live
oaks. I was not in love with Flora and she was not in love with me,
but de Langeais thought we were, and would not listen to my claim of
kinship.

"I received a glorious little scratch on my left side and he suffered an
equally gloriou