the tallest tree. He was an old solitary and a wise one, yet he was
not wise enough to guess what it was all about. So all day long he kept
blinking and wondering.

The noise reached far out over the plain and across the hills and awoke
the little babes that were sleeping in their cradles. The smoke curled
up toward the sun and shadowed the plain so that the stupid birds
thought it was going to rain; but the wise one knew better.

"They are children playing a game," thought he. "I shall know more about
it if I watch long enough."

At the approach of night they had all vanished away with their din and
smoke. Then the old bird plumed his feathers. At last he had understood!
With a flap of his great, black wings he shot downward, circling toward
the plain.

A man was picking his way across the plain. He was dressed in the
garb of a clergyman. His mission was to administer the consolations of
religion to any of the prostrate figures in whom there might yet linger
a spark of life. A negro accompanied him, bearing a bucket of water and
a flask of wine.

There were no wounded here; they had been borne away. But the retreat
had been hurried and the vultures and the good Samaritans would have to
look to the dead.

There was a soldier--a mere boy--lying with his face to the sky. His
hands were clutching the sward on either side and his finger nails
were stuffed with earth and bits of grass that he had gathered in his
despairing grasp upon life. His musket was gone; he was hatless and his
face and clothing were begrimed. Around his neck hung a gold chain and
locket. The priest, bending over him, unclasped the chain and removed
it from the dead soldier's neck. He had grown used to the terrors of
war and could face them unflinchingly; but its pathos, someway, always
brought the tears to his old, dim eyes.

The angelus was ringing half a mile away. The priest and the negro knelt
and murmured together the evening benediction and a prayer for the dead.

II

The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like
a benediction. Along the leafy road which skirted a narrow, tortuous
stream in central Louisiana, rumbled an old fashioned cabriolet, much
the worse for hard and rough usage over country roads and lanes.
The fat, black horses went in a slow, measured trot, notwithstanding
constant urging on the part of the fat, black coachman. Within the
vehicle were seated the fair Octavie and her old friend