d-natured prods in the ribs which he received from
the boys who were marching beside him. He stoutly affirmed that he had
uttered nothing but his honest sentiments, and hoped that every one who
took a hand in marring "our motto of many in one" would get whipped for
his pains.

The students were well acquainted with the people living along their
line of march, and were more than satisfied with the enthusiastic
greetings given to them and their flag. When they filed through the gate
into the academy grounds the sentry presented arms, and the commandant,
who was standing at his window, turned away. The boys saw it, and told
one another that the colonel was coming to his senses, and that he would
not interpose his authority when they were ready to run up the Stars and
Bars on the following morning.

"You fellows are making a heap of fuss about nothing," said Marcy Gray,
as his cousin halted beside the camp-chair in which he was sitting and
waved the flag over his head, while the rest of the squad trooped up the
wide steps that led into the hall. "Take that thing away. The time may
come when you will be sorry you ever saw it."

"It shall gleam o'er the sea 'mid the bolts of the storm,
O'er the battle and tempest and wreck,
And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm--"

sang Rodney. "Look here, old fellow: Couldn't you get up spirit enough
to give us a cheer?"

"I don't think I could," replied Marcy. "Did you fellows all have
passes? I thought not. If things were as they used to be you would find
yourselves in the guard-house in less than ten minutes."

"We are aware of it," answered Rodney; "but if things were as they used
to be, we should not have climbed the fence and gone to town without
permission. But these are times when rules don't count. There is your
mail, and if you will take a friend's advice, you will read that paper
carefully. I think there is something in it that concerns you."

"What is it, and where is it? Tell me all about it, and then I shall be
spared the trouble of looking it up."

"Well," said Rodney, as if he hardly knew how to give his cousin the
desired information, "Congress has passed a law commanding all Northern
sympathizers to leave the limits of the Confederacy within ten days."

"Has this State gone out?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then I don't see how that law concerns me. I am not in the Confederacy,
am I? As long as the State does not tell me to go, I shall stay w