y regiment at once should hostilities
break out before the spring."

"We saw the news that you had escaped," the general said, "but feared,
as so long a time elapsed without hearing from you, that you had been
shot in attempting to cross the lines. Your request for leave is
granted, and a note will be made of your zeal in thus rejoining on the
very day after your return. The vacancy in the regiment has been filled
up, but I will appoint you temporarily to General Stuart's staff, and I
shall have great pleasure in to-day filling up your commission as
captain. Now let me hear how you made your escape. By the accounts
published in the Northern papers it seemed that you must have had a
confederate outside the walls."

Vincent gave a full account of his escape from prison and a brief sketch
of his subsequent proceedings, saying only that he was in the house of
some loyal people in Tennessee when it was attacked by a party of Yankee
bushwhackers; that these were beaten off in the fight, but that he
himself had a pistol bullet in his shoulder. He then made his way on
until compelled by his wound to lay up for six weeks in a lonely
farmhouse near Mount Pleasant; that afterward, in the disguise of a
young farmer, he had made a long detour across the Tennessee River and
reached Georgia.

"When do you leave for the front, Captain Wingfield?"

"I shall be ready to start to-night, sir."

"In that case I will trouble you to come here again this evening. There
will be a fast train going through with ammunition for Lee at ten
o'clock, and I shall have a bag of dispatches for him, which I will
trouble you to deliver. You will find me here up to the last moment. I
will give orders that a horse-box be attached to the train."

After expressing his thanks Vincent took his leave. As he left the
general's quarters, a young man, just alighting from his horse, gave a
shout of greeting.

"Why, Wingfield, it is good to see you! I thought you were pining again
in a Yankee dungeon, or had got knocked on the head crossing the lines.
Where have you sprung from, and when did you arrive?"

"I only got in yesterday after sundry adventures which I will tell you
about presently. When did you arrive from the front?"

"I came down a few days ago on a week's leave on urgent family
business," the young man laughed, "and I am going back again this
afternoon by the four o'clock train."

"Stay till ten," Vincent said, "and we will go back together. T