unced the arrival of the advance guard.

Among the entering host are two faces well-known to us.

At the head of his regiment, which has left nearly half its number on
the cold ground at Bazeilles and Orleans, and for that reason has to
accept a double tribute of flowers from the windows on the right and
left, rides Captain von Schnetz, his lank figure seated bolt upright in
the saddle, his breast blazing with orders, and his whole person
covered from head to foot with the bouquets which, aimed at the rider,
have fallen off and been handed up to him by the boys that run along at
his side. He has decorated his sword with them, and his helmet, and his
pistols, and his horse's trappings, although usually he is no great
admirer of flowers. Nor does he do this now for his own glorification
or pleasure. But he knows that, at a window in the first story of that
stately house over yonder, there sits a woman, thin and prematurely
old, but whose cheeks, usually so pale, wear a joyous flush to-day, and
whose eyes, grown faded through long suffering, beam once more with
something of the brightness and hopefulness of youth. It is to this
woman that he wants to show himself in his covering of flowers.
Heretofore, she has worn a crown of thorns; now he wants to show her
the promising future he has won for himself and her. But she sees him
from a distance only. When the good, honesty yellow-leather-colored
face, with its black imperial, rides by, close to the house, her eyes
are so bedimmed by tears that she only sees, as if through a veil, how
he lowers his sword to her in salute, and bows slightly with his
garlanded helmet. The wreath which she has held ready for him falls
from her trembling hand over the railing upon the heads of the densely
packed crowd below. But they seem to know for whom it is intended. In a
second twenty hands have helped to pass it along to him, and now it is
handed up to the rider, who lets all the others slide off his sword so
that this one alone shall be wound about it.

Not far behind this brave soldier rides another, upon whom, likewise,
the eyes of the women and girls in the windows gaze with pleasure,
though he is a stranger to them all, and, for his part, very rarely
lets his dark eyes rest on any of these blooming faces. For who is
there here whom he cares to seek? And whose face would he be glad to
see unexpectedly? It was only with great reluctance and in order not to
offend Schnetz, who asked it