whips cracking, horses plunging, the
hills smoking and shaking!" The rare creature sparkled frankly, seeing
the battery whirling into action with its standard on the wind--this
very flag she expected presently to bestow.

"And with Kincaid at the head!" softly cried the antique.

The girl put on a fondness which suddenly became a withering droop of
the eyes: "Don't mince your smile so, grannie dear, I can hear the paint
crack."

The wee relic flashed, yet instantly was bland again: "You were about to
say, however, that in the artillery--?"

"The risks are the deadliest of all."

"Ah, yes!" sang the mosquito, "and for a sister to push her boy brother
into a battery under such a commander would be too much like murder!"

The maiden felt the same start as when Greenleaf had ventured almost
those words. "Yes," she beamingly rejoined, "that's what I told the
Lieutenant."

"With a blush?"

"No," carelessly said the slender beauty, and exchanged happy signals
with the Callenders.

"You tricksy wretch!" muttered the grandmother to herself. For though
Charlie was in the battery by his own choice, Hilary would have kept him
out had not the sister begged to have him let in.

Suddenly there was a glad stoppage of all by-play in the swarming
streets. Down St. Charles from LaFayette Square came the shock of
saluting artillery, and up Royal from Jackson Square rolled back
antiphonal thunders.

"Grandma!" softly cried Flora, as if sharing the general elation, but
had begun again to tell of Greenleaf, when from far over in Camp Street
her subtle ear caught a faint stray sigh of saxhorns.

"Well? well? about the Yankee--?" urged Madame.

"Oh, a trifle! He was to go that night, and thinking he might some day
return in very different fashion and we be glad to make use of him, I--"
The speaker's lithe form straightened and her gaze went off to the left.
"Here they come!" she said, and out where Camp Street emerges, a glint
of steel, a gleam of brass, a swarming of the people that way, and again
a shimmer of brass and steel, affirmed her word that the long, plumed,
bristling column had got back to the arms of its darling Canal Street.

"Yes," cried many, "they're turning this way!"

"Well?--Well?" insisted the old lady amid the rising din. "And so
you--you?"

"Be more careful," murmured the girl. "I told him that our
convictions--about this war--yours and mine--not Charlie's--_are the
same as his_."

A charming sight