ess of
love after the exhibition he had made of himself before Betty Winter and
the brutal insult with which he met her advances. Some girls might
forgive it, but not this proud, sensitive, high strung daughter of the
snows of New England and the sunlight of France. And so he had
resolutely put the thought out of his heart.

Julius had proven himself a valuable servant. He was the best cook in
the regiment, and what was still more important, he was the most
skillful thief and the most plausible liar in the army. He could defend
himself so nobly from the insinuations of the suspicious that they would
apologize for the wrong unwittingly done his character. John had not
lived so well since he could remember.

"Julius, you're a handy man in war!" he exclaimed after a hearty supper
on fried chicken.

"Yassah--I manage ter git 'long, sah."

Julius took up his banjo and began to tune it for an accompaniment to
his songs. He had a mellow rhythmical voice that always brought the
crowd. He began with his favorite that never failed to please his
master. The way he rolled his eyes and sang with his hands and feet and
every muscle of his body was the source of unending interest to his
Northern audience.

He ran his fingers lightly over the strings and the men threw down their
dirty packs of cards and crowded around John's tent. Julius only sang
one line at a time and picked his banjo between them to a low wailing
sound of his own invention:

"O! far' you well, my Mary Ann;
Far' you well, my dear!
I've no one left to love me now
And little do I care----"

He paused between the stanzas and picked his banjo to a few prose
interpolations of his own.

"Dat's what I'm a tellin' ye now, folks--little do I care!"

He knew his master had been crossed in love and he rolled his eyes and
nodded his woolly head in triumphant approval. John smiled wanly as he
drifted slowly into his next stanza.

"An' ef I had a scoldin' wife
I'd whip her sho's yer born,
I'd take her down to New Orleans
An' trade her off fer corn----"

Julius stopped with a sudden snap and whispered to John:

"Lordy, sah, I clean fergit 'bout dat meetin' at de cullud folks'
church, sah, dat dey start up. I promise de preacher ter fetch you,
sah--An' ef we gwine ter march ter-morrow, dis here's de las' night
sho----"

The concert was adjourned to the log house which an old colored preacher
had converted into a church. It was fil