ble gray horse, is slowly coming around the
bend. The soldiers grouped about the gateway, back at the farmhouse,
turn and look curiously towards the hollow-sounding hoof-beats, but
neither the colonel nor his junior officer seems to notice them. Abbot's
thoughts are evidently far away, and he makes no reply. The surgeon who
sanctions his return to field duty yet a while would, to all
appearances, be guilty of a professional blunder. The lieutenant's face
is pale and thin; his hand looks very fragile and fearfully white in
contrast with the bronze of his cheek. He leans his head upon his hand
as he gazes away into the distance, and the colonel stands attentively
regarding him. He recalls the young fellow's gallant and spirited
conduct at Manassas and South Mountain; his devotion to his soldier duty
since the day he first "reported." If ever an officer deserved a month
at home, in which to recuperate from the shock of painful wounds, surely
that officer was Abbot. The colonel well knows with what pride and
blessing his revered old father would welcome his coming--the joy it
would bring to the household at his home. It is an open secret, too,
that he is engaged to Genevieve Winthrop, and surely a man must want to
see the lady of his love. He well remembers how she came with other
ladies to attend the presentation of colors to the regiment, and how
handsome and distinguished a woman she looked. The Common was thronged
with Boston's "oldest and best" that day, and Colonel Raymond's speech
of acceptance made eloquent reference to the fact that of all the grand
old names that had been prominent in the colonial history of the
commonwealth not one was absent from the muster-roll of the regiment it
was his high honor to command. The Abbots and Winthrops had a history
coeval with that of the colony, and were long and intimately acquainted.
When, therefore, it was rumored that Genevieve Winthrop was to marry
Paul Abbot "as soon as the war was over," people simply took it as a
matter of course--they had been engaged ever since they were trundled
side by side in the primitive baby-carriages of the earliest forties.
This reflection leads the colonel to the realization of the fact that
they must be very much of an age. Indeed, had he not heard it whispered
that Miss Winthrop was the senior by nearly a year? Abbot looked young,
almost boyish, when he was first commissioned in May of '61, but he had
aged rapidly, and was greatly changed. H