e front of the
lowest Hyde & Goodrich balcony, close by the gilded pelican, sat the
Callenders, all gladness, holding mute dialogues with Flora and Madame
Valcour here on the balcony of Moody's corner. It was the birthday of
Washington.

Not of him, however, did Flora and her grandmother softly converse in
Spanish amid the surrounding babel of English and French. Their theme
was our battery drill of some ten days before, a subject urged upon
Flora by the mosquito-like probings of Madame's musically whined
queries. Better to be bled of almost any information by the antique
little dame than to have her light on it some other way, as she had an
amazing knack of doing. Her _acted_ part of things Flora kept untold;
but grandma's spirit of divination could unfailingly supply that, and
her pencilled brows, stiff as they were, could tell the narrator she had
done so.

Thus now, Flora gave no hint of the beautiful skill and quick success
with which, on her homeward railway trip with Greenleaf that evening,
she had bettered his impressions of her. By no more than a gentle play
of light and shade in her smile and an undulating melody of
voice--without a word that touched the wound itself, but with a timid
glow of compassionate admiration--she had soothed the torture of a heart
whose last hope Anna had that same hour put to death.

"But before he took the train with you," murmured the mosquito to the
butterfly, "when he said the General was going to take Irby upon his
staff and give the battery to Kincaid, what did you talk of?"

"Talk of? Charlie. He said I ought to make Charlie join the battery."

"Ah? For what? To secure Kincaid's protection of your dear little
brother's health--character--morals--eh?"

"Yes, 'twas so he put it," replied Flora, while the old lady's eyebrows
visibly cried:

"You sly bird! will you impute _all_ your own words to that Yankee, and
his to yourself?"

Which is just what Flora continued to do as the grandma tinkled: "And
you said--what?"

"I said if I couldn't keep him at home I ought to get him into the
cavalry. You know, dear, in the infantry the marches are so cruel, the
camps so--"

"But in the artillery," piped the small dame, "they ride, eh?" (It was a
trap she was setting, but in vain was the net spread.)

"No," said the serene girl, "they, too, go afoot. Often they must help
the horses drag the guns through the mire. Only on parade they ride, or
when rushing to and fro in battle,