here the brambles were thick and the dews
heavy,--nay, into swamps and puddles where the April rains were still
undried. Ford's boots and trousers had imbibed a deep foretaste of the
Virginia mud; his companion's skirts were fearfully bedraggled. What
great enthusiasm had made our friends so unmindful of their steps? What
blinding ardor had kindled these strange phenomena: a young lieutenant
scornful of his first uniform, a well-bred young lady reckless of her
stockings?

Good reader, this narrative is averse to retrospect.

Elizabeth (as I shall not scruple to call her outright) was leaning upon
her companion's arm, half moving in concert with him, and half allowing
herself to be led, with that instinctive acknowledgment of dependence
natural to a young girl who has just received the assurance of lifelong
protection. Ford was lounging along with that calm, swinging stride
which often bespeaks, when you can read it aright, the answering
consciousness of a sudden rush of manhood. A spectator might have
thought him at this moment profoundly conceited. The young girl's blue
veil was dangling from his pocket; he had shouldered her sun-umbrella
after the fashion of a musket on a march: he might carry these trifles.
Was there not a vague longing expressed in the strong expansion of his
stalwart shoulders, in the fond accommodation of his pace to hers,--her
pace so submissive and slow, that, when he tried to match it, they
almost came to a delightful standstill,--a silent desire for the whole
fair burden?

They made their way up a long swelling mound, whose top commanded the
sunset. The dim landscape which had been brightening all day to the
green of spring was now darkening to the gray of evening. The lesser
hills, the farms, the brooks, the fields, orchards, and woods, made a
dusky gulf before the great splendor of the west. As Ford looked at the
clouds, it seemed to him that their imagery was all of war, their great
uneven masses were marshalled into the semblance of a battle. There were
columns charging and columns flying and standards floating,--tatters of
the reflected purple; and great captains on colossal horses, and a
rolling canopy of cannon-smoke and fire and blood. The background of the
clouds, indeed, was like a land on fire, or a battle-ground illumined by
another sunset, a country of blackened villages and crimsoned pastures.
The tumult of the clouds increased; it was hard to believe them
inanimate. You might