of
our forces. When you think you have mastered them, ride through the
whole of the positions occupied by the corps and, without exposing
yourself, gain as good an idea as you can of the country beyond.
Tomorrow you may have to ride straight to certain points, with
orders; and it may save important time if you are thoroughly
acquainted with the ground, and position."

After a couple of hours' study of the staff map, so as to know
every little by-lane and hamlet, for ten miles on either side,
Ralph mounted his horse and went for a long ride. When he returned,
Colonel Tempe told him that General Chanzy was gone over to General
D'Aurelle's quarters, to arrange the details; and that the attack
was to take place the next day.

At five o'clock the general returned; and Colonel Tempe and the
chief of his staff were occupied with him, for two hours, in
drawing up the specific orders for each corps. Colonel Tempe had
not been out, all day; and he therefore offered his horse to Ralph,
in order that Ralph's own might be fresh for the next day.

Four staff officers set off in various directions with the
dispatches; and Ralph congratulated himself upon having been upon
the ground he was now traversing once before that day as, even with
that previous acquaintance, it was hard work to find the way
through the darkness, from the snow altering the general appearance
and apparent distance of each object. Thanks, however, to his ride
of the morning, he reached the various corps to which he was
dispatched without any serious mistakes in his way; and got back to
headquarters by eleven o'clock.

Tim was waiting up for him.

"Sure, your honor, and it's a mighty cold night. I've got a pot of
coffee on the boil in the stables."

"Thank you, Tim. I will just go in and make my report to the
general, and then go off to bed. Bring the coffee into my room. We
shall be up early, for we fight tomorrow."

"Do we, now?" Tim said, admiringly. "And it's about time; for we
should be all frozen into skeletons, if we were to wait here doing
nothing much longer. Bad luck to the weather, says I."

At ten o'clock the next morning the French troops were in motion,
the objects of their attack being the villages of Guillonville,
Terminiers, and Conier. The country was extremely flat and, for an
hour, they saw no bodies of the enemy. A few videttes, only, were
seen. These galloped off hastily, the moment they caught sight of
the heavy masses of the Fren