llantly; "but wherever it is, it
will be better than here, just because she's there."

The sight of an orderly, coming with the morning mail, ended the
discussion by scattering the squad in a hurry.

Rachel cantered on, her spirits rising continually.

It was a bright, crisp morning--a Tennessee Winter morning--when the
air is as wine to the blood, and sets every pulse to leaping.
Delicate balsamic scents floated down from groves of shapely cedars.
Gratefully-astringent odors were wafted from the red oaks, ranked
upon the hillsides and still covered with their leaves, now turned
bright-brown, making them appear like serried phalanges of giant
knights, clad in rusted scale armor. The spicy smell of burning cedar
rose on the lazily-curling smoke from a thousand camp-fires. The
red-berried holly looked as fresh and bright as rose-bushes in June, and
the magnolias still wore their liveries of Spring. The sun shone down
with a tender fervor, as if wooing the sleeping buds and flowers to wake
from a slumber of which he had grown weary, and start with him again
through primrose paths on the pilgrimage of blossoming and fruitage.

Rachel's nostrils expanded, and she drank deeply of the exhilarating
draughts of mountain air, with its delicious woodsy fragrance. Her steed
did the same, and the hearts of both swelled with the inspiration.

Away she sped over the firm, smooth Murfreesboro Pike, winding around
hillsides and through valleys filled with infantry, cavalry and
artillery, through interminable masses of wagons, hers of braying mules,
and crowds of unarmed soldiers trudging back to Nashville, on leave of
absence, to spend the day seeing the sights of the historic Tennessee
capital. In the camps the soldiers were busy with evergreen and bunting,
and the contents of boxes received from the North, preparing for the
celebration of Christmas in something like the manner of the old days of
home and peace.

Like the sweet perfume of rose-attar from a bundle of letters
unwittingly stirred in a drawer, rose the fragrant memory of the last of
those Christmases in Sardis before the war, when winged on he scent of
evergreens, and the merry laughter of the church decorators, came to her
the knowledge that she had found a lodgment in the heart of Harry Glen.

Was memory juggling with her senses, or was that really his voice she
heard in command, in a field to her left? She turned a swift, startled
look in that direction, and saw