station left to anybody who wanted the place, and all as an every-day
incident of army life. That such things could be expected and demanded
in the midst of a mortal struggle for national honor was another matter
entirely,--something to be encountered once in a lifetime, and something
to be cherished in family tradition as grand, patriotic, heroic, and
worthy of keeping in remembrance from generation to generation; but that
to do all this merely as a piece of duty because one's particular
regiment happened to be setting forth on probably hazardous service, but
of a trivial nature as compared with the interests involved in the only
war she heard much talked of, why, she never dreamed of such a
possibility, and her ideas were no more vague than are those of the
general public on precisely the same subject.

Twelve o'clock struck from the great bell over at the tower, and still
Grace and her husband remained below. It was time--high time to go to
bed, said Miss Sanford, though still perplexed, anxious, and distressed.
Grace would surely come to her as soon as matters were decided. She
stepped to her window to take a good-night look at the moonlit plain.
Drawing aside the curtain, she peered through the blinds. Standing in
silence at the front gate, leaning on the iron fence and gazing fixedly
in the direction of the library window which opened toward the north,
there appeared the figure of a man. A moment he stood there motionless,
attentive. Then, without a sound, he swung back the gate, and quickly
and almost on tiptoe, it seemed to her, stepped up the walk, passed
through a broad, moonlit space, and was as quickly lost to sight and
hearing around the corner of the house. She recognized the form and
bearing at a glance. The man was Sergeant Wolf.

CHAPTER VI.

AT THE FRONT.

Rare indeed is a day in June! Warmth and fragrance, sunshine and roses,
strawberries, straw hats, summer costumes, music and moonlight, soft
zephyrs, softer speeches, softest of swains have we left at the Point.
Farewells--sweet, sad, sentimental some of them--have been said. The
corps of cadets has gone to the Centennial with thousands of sight-seers
from all over the nation. They hardly had dared hope for such an
unaccustomed delight. They had not expected to go, but went. The nation
flocks to Philadelphia, but out in the Northwest some hundreds of its
defenders are flocking in another direction. Come with us and take
another look at o