ring's staff. Where he goes at present
I go. And where General Jackson goes, apparently we all go! Heigho! How
do you like war, Miss Miriam?"

Miriam regarded him with her air of a brown and gold gilliflower. She
thought him very handsome, and oh, she liked the gold-braided cap and
the fine white gauntlet! "There is something to be said on both sides,"
she stated sedately. "I should like it very much did not you all run
into danger."

Stafford looked at her, amused. "But some of us run out again--Ah!"

Cleave came from the house and down the path to the gate, moving in a
red sunset glow, beneath trees on which yet hung a few russet leaves. He
greeted his mother and sister, then turned with courtesy to Stafford.
"Sandy Pendleton told me you were in town. From General Loring, are you
not? You low-countrymen are gathering all our mountain laurels! Gauley
River and Greenbriar and to-day, news of the Allegheny engagement--"

"You seem to be bent," said Stafford, "on drawing us from the Monterey
line before we can gather any more! We will be here next week."

"You do not like the idea?"

The other shrugged. "I? Why should I care? It is war to go where you are
sent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see what
can be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we leave
the passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from pushing a
force through to Staunton!"

"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle
valley and they are ours."

Stafford made a gesture. "_Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame!_ Mrs. Cleave,
there is no help for it! We are bewitched--and all by a stone wall in an
old cadet cap!"

Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent--You will not go
in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel."

Margaret Cleave held out her hand. "Good-bye, Major Stafford. We think
day and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever you may
be!"

In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the Taylor
House. "It is a good thing to have a mother," said Stafford. "Mine died
when I was a little boy.--Well, what do you think of affairs in
general?"

"I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory."

"I share your opinion. It was disastrous. How confident we are with our
'One to Four,' our 'Quality, not Quantity,' our contempt for 'Brute
Mass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fighting
animal was never bre