y uniforms now drawn up in front of
us; at some little distance; standing still and doing nothing, that I
could see. Nearer to us and facing them stood a single grey figure; I
looked hard, but could not make out that it was Preston. Nearer still,
stood with arms folded one of those whom the doctor had said were army
officers; I thought, the very one I had seen leave the hotel; but all
like statues, motionless and fixed. Only the band seemed to have some
life in them.

"What is it, Dr. Sandford?" I whispered, after a few minutes of
intense enjoyment.

"Don't know, Daisy."

"But what are they doing?"

"I don't know, Daisy."

I nestled down into silence again, listening, almost with a doubt of
my own senses, as the notes of the instruments mingled with the summer
breeze and filled the June sunshine. The plain looked most beautiful,
edged with trees on three sides, and bounded to the east, in front of
me, by a chain of hills soft and wooded, which I afterwards found were
beyond the river. Near at hand, the order of military array, the flash
of a sword, the glitter of an epaulette, the glance of red sashes here
and there, the regularity of a perfect machine. I said nothing more to
Dr. Sandford; but I gathered drop by drop the sweetness of the time.

The statues broke into life a few minutes later, and there was a stir
of business of some sort; but I could make out nothing of what they
were doing. I took it on trust, and enjoyed everything to the full
till the show was over.

CHAPTER XIV.

YANKEES.

For several days I saw nothing of Preston. He was hardly missed.

I found that such a parade as that which pleased me the first morning
came off twice daily; and other military displays, more extended and
more interesting, were to be looked for every day at irregular times.
I failed not of one. So surely as the roll of the drum or a strain of
music announced that something of the sort was on hand, I caught up my
hat and was ready. And so was Dr. Sandford. Mrs. Sandford would often
not go; but the doctor's hat was as easily put on as mine, and as
readily; and he attended me, I used to think, as patiently as a great
Newfoundland dog. As patient, and as supreme. The evolutions of
soldiers and clangour of martial music were nothing to _him_, but he
must wait upon his little mistress. I mean of course the Newfoundland
dog; not Dr. Sandford.

"Will you go for a walk, Daisy?" he said, the morning of the third or
f