gh it might seem that
the age of the one and the tender youth of the other ill fitted them to
encounter this sudden transition from the cosy fireside to the raw
vernal air on a misty midnight jaunt of a dozen miles through a primeval
wilderness. And in truth the little lady seemed loath to leave the
hearth; she visibly hesitated as she stood beside her chair with her
hand on its back, and looked out at the black night, and the vague vista
which the ruddy flare, from the wide door, revealed amidst the dense
darkness; at the vanishing point of this perspective stood a group of
mounted soldiers, "in column of twos" with two led horses, the scarlet
uniforms and burnished accoutrements appearing and disappearing
elusively as the flames rose and fell. The sounds of the champing of
bits and the pawing of hoofs and the jingle of spurs were keenly clear
on the chill rare air and seemed somehow consonant with the frosty
glitter of the stars, very high in the black concave of the moonless
sky. The smell of the rich mould, permeated with its vernal growths; the
cool, distinct, rarefied perfume of some early flower already abloom;
the antiphonal chant of frogs roused in the marsh or stream hard by, so
imbued her senses with the realization of the hour and season that she
never afterward thought of the spring without a vivid renewal of these
impressions.

Her grandfather also seemed vaguely to hold back, even while he slowly
mounted his horse; yet aware that naught is so imperative as military
authority, it was only his inner consciousness that protested. Outwardly
he professed alacrity, although in great surprise declaring that he
could not imagine what the commandant could want with him. The little
linguister, for her part, had no doubts. She was well aware indeed of
the cause of the summons, and so dismayed by the prospect was even her
doughty heart that the swift ride through the black forest was less
terrible to her than the thought of the ordeal of the arrival. But the
march was not without its peculiar trials. She shrank in instinctive
affright from the unaccustomed escort of a dragoon on either side of
her, looming up in the darkness like some phantom of the midnight. Even
her volition seemed wrested from her by reason of the military training
of the troop-horse which she rode;--he whirled about at the command
"right-wheel!" ringing out in the darkness in the crisp peremptory tones
of the non-commissioned officer, and plunged