hug him in the most extraordinary manner.

"I am glad to see you, Hapgood! How have you been since I left?" said
Somers.

"First-rate! Bless my withered old carcass, Tom, but I thought I never
should see you again. Why, Tom, how handsome you've grown! Well, you'll
be a brigadier one of these days, and there won't be a better-looking
officer on the field. Dear me, Tom---- Beg pardon; I forgot that you are
an officer; and I mustn't call you Tom any more."

"Never mind that, uncle," added Somers, laughing. "It would hardly be
good discipline for a sergeant to call an officer by a nickname; but we
will compromise, and you shall call me Tom when we are not on duty, and
there is no one within hearing."

"Compromise! Don't never use that word to me. After we fit the battle of
Bull Run, I gouged that word out of my dictionary. No, sir! You are a
leftenant now; and I shall allus call you Leftenant Somers, even if there
ain't nobody within ten mile of us."

"Just as you please, uncle; but, whatever you call me, we shall be just
as good friends as we ever were."

"That's so, Leftenant Somers."

"Precisely, Sergeant Hapgood."

"Now, what's the news in Pinchbrook?" asked the veteran.

But, before Somers had a chance to tell the news from home, he was
welcomed to the camp, and cheered, by officers and men; and his account
of what had transpired in Pinchbrook during his thirty days' furlough was
eagerly listened to by a large and attentive audience. He received in
return a full history of the regiment during his absence. Though the
narrative of sundry exciting events, such as forays upon pig-sties,
poultry-yards, and kitchen-gardens, was highly amusing, there was a tale
of sadness to tell--of deaths by disease and on the battlefield.

Many cheerful hearts that were beating with life and hope a few weeks
before, were now silent in the grave--the soldier's mausoleum in a
strange land. But soldiers have no time to weep over a dead past; they
must live in the hope of a glorious future; and when they had dropped a
tear to the memory of the noble and the true who had fallen on the field
or died in the hospital, victims of the pestilential airs of the swamp,
they laughed as merrily as ever, careless of Death's poised arrows which
were always aimed at them.

Captain de Banyan took his place in the regiment, where Somers found that
he was prodigiously popular, even after a few hours' acquaintance with
his new command; but who he