-which is far from being always so. Yet his
habitual expression was of calm benevolence, his gestures whenever he
moved were gentle, and his gray eyes shed a mild light. His fine white
hair and beard contributed to his fatherly appearance. One might have
pointed him out as the president of a famous college or the leader of a
reform movement--so little does Nature indicate a man's trade by his
face.

Those around the gray-haired chief, whose camp spread for miles through
the green forest, were singularly unlike him in manner and bearing, and
perhaps it was this sharp contrast that gave to him as he sat among his
battalions the air of a patriarch. He was old; they were young. He was
white of head, but one might search in vain through these ragged
regiments for a gray hair. They were but boys, though they had passed
through some of the greatest battles the world has ever known, and
to-day, when there was a pause in the war and the wind blew from the
south, they refused to be sad or to fear for the future. If the truth be
told, the future was the smallest item in their reckoning. Men of their
trade, especially with their youth, found the present so large that room
was left for nothing else. They would take their ease now and rejoice.

Now and then they looked toward the other and larger army that lay
facing them not far away, but it did not trouble them greatly. There was
by mutual though tacit consent an interval of peace, and these foes, who
had learned in fire and smoke to honour each other, would not break it
through any act of bad faith. So some slept on the grass or the
fresh-cut boughs of trees; others sang or listened to the music of old
violins or accordions, while more talked on any subject that came into
their minds, though their voices sank when it was of far homes not seen
since long ago. Of the hostile camp facing theirs a like tale might have
been told.

It seemed to Prescott, who sat near the General's tent, as if two huge
picnic parties had camped near each other with the probability that they
would join and become one in a short time--an illusion arising from the
fact that he had gone into the war without any deep feeling over its
real or alleged causes.

"Why do you study the Yankees so hard?" asked Talbot, who lay in the
shade of a tree. "They are not troubling us, and I learned when I cut my
eye teeth not to bother with a man who isn't bothering me--a rule that
works well."

"To tell you the truth