the opposition.

He answered promptly and cordially everything Mr. Warner wrote with a
single exception. The young adjutant was requested by Colonel Whaling to
put in a word or two for the Hibernian quartermaster whom Blake had cut
dead, and who was perturbed in spirit over the prospect of being
otherwise lacerated when Ray got back. Warner thought that the colonel
or the quartermaster himself should make the proper _amende_ in this
case, but the latter was a poor hand at epistolary expression, and the
former had long been a pronounced adherent of that "divine right of"
commanding officers which makes the adjutant the transmitter and medium
of all correspondence involving matters of delicate or diplomatic
import. If the result be successful, all right. It was written by
direction of Colonel So and So, and is presumably his own wording. If it
fail, then anybody can see that failure is due solely to the clumsy and
blockheaded manipulation of the adjutant.

Mr. Warner conveyed a hope that the quartermaster might be included in
the general amnesty, but to this Ray made no response. He drew the line
at those who had been unkind to Dandy.

And now he was hurrying back to Russell to conduct a large body of
recruits and horses up to "the Hills" to meet the regiment; and a party
of young officers had joined, many of them graduates of that very year's
class at the Point, young fellows whom Mrs. Truscott had known well but
a few months previous, when they wore the gray under Jack's tuition at
squadron drill and riding-hall work. Their regiments being in the field
on active campaign, they abandoned much of the leave of absence due them
and hastened to report for duty. Their services were most needed in
getting the recruits into shape, and here they were at Russell
enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing Captain Truscott again, devoting
themselves to the ladies at his army home, and eager to a man to see and
know Ray, whose name was on every lip, whom every man of them envied,
and who would arrive at noon on the morrow.

Mrs. Stannard's piazza was the scene of a levee this lovely, sunshiny
autumn afternoon. She was there with Miss Sanford and Mrs. Truscott, who
was reclining in a comfortable wicker chair, and vastly enjoying the
sunshine, the bracing air, and above all the merry chat of these young
troopers, and envying them their northward march. Would they not be with
Jack in a fortnight? Half a dozen of the "boys" were flocking