ybody wants to
insult me, let him just ask me to do it again!"

Preston's mood was unmanageable. I had never seen him so in old times.
I thought West Point did not agree with him. I listened to the band,
just then playing a fine air, and lamented privately to myself that
brass instruments should be so much more harmonious than human
tempers. Then the music ceased and the military movements drew my
attention again.

"They all walk like you," I observed carelessly, as I noticed a
measured step crossing the camp ground.

"Do they?" said Preston sneeringly. "I flatter myself I do not walk
like _all_ of them. If you notice more closely, Daisy, you will see a
difference. You can tell a Southerner, on foot or on horseback, from
the sons of tailors and farmers--strange if you couldn't!"

"I think you are unjust, Preston," I said. "You should not talk so.
Major Blunt walks as well and stands much better than any officer I
have seen; and he is from Vermont; and Capt. Percival is from South
Carolina, and Mr. Hunter is from Virginia, and Col. Forsyth is from
Georgia. They are all of them less graceful than Major Blunt."

"What do you think of Dr. Sandford?" said Preston in the same tone; but
before I could answer I heard a call of "Gary!--Gary!" I looked round.
In the midst of the ranks of spectators to our left stood a cadet, my
friend of the omnibus. He was looking impatiently our way, and again
exclaimed in a sort of suppressed shout--"Gary!" Preston heard him that
time; started from my side, and placed himself immediately beside his
summoner, in front of the guard tents and spectators. The two were in
line, two or three yards separating them, and both facing towards a party
drawn up at some little distance on the camp ground, which I believe were
the relieving guard. I moved my own position to a place immediately
behind them, where I spied an empty camp-stool, and watched the two with
curious eyes. Uniforms, and military conformities generally, are queer
things if you take the right point of view. Here were these two, a pair,
and not a pair. The grey coat and the white pantaloons (they had all gone
into white now), the little soldier's cap, were a counterpart in each of
the other; the two even stood on the ground as if they were bound to be
patterns each of the other; and when my acquaintance raised his arms and
folded them after the most approved fashion, to my great amusement
Preston's arms copied the movement: and they