r-of-fact way,--

"Oh, Captain Rayner, I presume Mr. Hayne will need three or four men to
help him get his quarters in shape. I suppose you have already thought
to send them?"

And Rayner flushed, and stammered, "They have not gone yet, sir; but I
had--thought of it."

Later, when the sergeant sent the required detail he reported to the
captain in the company office in five minutes: "The lieutenant's
compliments and thanks, but he does not need the men."

The dinner at the colonel's, quiet as it was and with only eight at
table, was an affair of almost momentous importance to Mr. Hayne. It was
the first thing of the kind he had attended in five years; and though he
well knew for knew that it was intended by the cavalry commander more
especially as a recognition of the services rendered their suffering
men, he could not but rejoice in the courtesy and tact with which he was
received and entertained. The colonel's wife, the adjutant's, and those
of two captains away with the field battalion, were the four ladies who
were there to greet him when, escorted by Mr. Blake, he made his
appearance. How long--how very long--it seemed to him since he had sat
in the presence of refined and attractive women and listened to their
gay and animated chat! They seemed all such good friends, they made him
so thoroughly at home, and they showed so much tact and ease, that never
once did it seem apparent that they knew of his trouble in his own
regiment; and yet there was no actual avoidance of matters in which the
Riflers were generally interested. It was mainly of his brief visit to
the East, however, that they made him talk,--of the operas and theatres
he had attended, the pictures he had seen, the music that was most
popular; and when dinner was over their hostess led him to her piano,
and he played and sang for them again and again. His voice was soft and
sweet, and, though it was uncultivated, he sang with expression and
grace, playing with more skill but less feeling and effect than he sang.
Music and books had been the solace of lonely years, and he could easily
see that he had pleased them with his songs. He went home to the dreary
rookery out on Prairie Avenue and laughed at the howling wind. The bare
grimy walls and the dim kerosene lamp, even Sam's unmelodious snore in
the back room, sent no gloom to his soul. It had been a happy evening.
It had cost him a hard struggle to restrain the emotion which he had
felt at times; and