with him through life, strangely recurrent in
moments of peril, on the march, or in the loneliness of his tent.

"Good evening," he said as he came near. She sat down on the low wall and
he at her feet. "Ah, it is good to get you alone for a quiet talk,
Leila."

She was aware of a wild desire to lay a hand among the curls his
cadet-cropped hair still left over his forehead. "Do you really like the
life here, John?"

"Oh, yes. It is so definite--its duties are so plain--nothing is left to
choice. Like it? Yes, I like it."

"But, isn't it very limited?"

"All good education must be--it is only a preparation; but one's
imagination is free--as to a man's future, and as to ambitions. There
one can use one's wings."

She continued her investigation. "Then you have ambitions. Yes, you must
have," she cried with animation. "Oh, I want you to have them--ideals too
of life. We used to discuss them."

He looked up. "You think I have changed. You want to know how. It is all
vague--very vague. Yet, I could put my creed of what conduct is desirable
in life in a phrase--in a text."

"Do, John." She leaned over in her interest.

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and to God the things
which are God's." The seriousness of the upturned face for a moment kept
her silently reflective.

"Caesar! What of Caesar, John?"

"My country, of course; that is simple. The rest, Leila, covers
all--almost all of life and needs no comment. But how serious we are.
Tell me all about home and the village and the horses and Uncle Jim.
He has some grey hairs."

"He may well have grey hairs, John. The times are bad. He is worried.
Imagine Uncle Jim economical!"

"Incredible."

"Yes. He told me that his talk with Colonel Beauregard had made him
despair of a peaceful ending, and usually he is hopeful."

"Well, don't make me talk politics. We rarely do. Isn't this outlook
beautiful? People rarely come here and it often gives me a chance to be
alone and to think."

"And what do you think about, John?" She was again curious.

"Oh, many things, big and little. Uncle Jim, Aunt Ann, Mr. Rivers,
Dixy--hornets, muskrats," he laughed. She noted the omission of Leila
Grey.

"And what else?"

"Oh, the tragedy of Arnold,--the pathos of Washington's despair,--his
words, 'Who is there now I can trust?'"

"It came home to me, John, this morning when Colonel Beauregard showed us
the portraits of the major-generals of the Revolution. I