aside; the mettlesome horse gave a plunge and
started off at a three-minute gait. The boy drew out his watch and
observed: "He hain't got but fifteen minutes to git to camp in, but he
'll do it. The mare 's a stepper, and Phil King knows how to handle the
ribbons."

The buggy vanished in a cloud of dust around the next turn in the road.
The stable-boy strode whistling down the street, the minister went to
his study, and Miss Morton disappeared in the shrubbery in the direction
of the summer-house.

II

Early next morning the country roads leading into Waterville were
covered with carts and wagons and carriages loaded with people coming
into town to see the regiment off. The streets were hung with flags
and spanned with decorated arches bearing patriotic inscriptions. Bed,
white, and blue streamers hung in festoons from building to building
and floated from cornices. The stores and places of business were all
closed, the sidewalks were packed with people in their Sunday clothes,
and the windows and balconies were lined with gazers long before it was
time for the regiment to appear. Everybody--men, women, and children
--wore the national colors in cockades or rosettes, while many young
girls were dressed throughout in red, white, and blue. The city seemed
tricked out for some rare gala-day, but the grave faces of the expectant
throng, and the subdued and earnest manner which extended even to the
older children, stamped this as no ordinary holiday.

After hours of patient waiting, at last the word passes from mouth to
mouth, "They are coming!" Vehicles are quickly driven out of the way,
and in a general hush all eyes are turned towards the head of the
street. Presently there is a burst of martial music, and the regiment
comes wheeling round the corner into view and fills the wide street from
curb to curb with its broad front. As the blue river sweeps along, the
rows of polished bayonets, rising and falling with the swinging tread
of the men, are like interminable ranks of foam-crested waves rolling in
upon the shore. The imposing mass, with its rhythmic movement, gives the
impression of a single organism. One forgets to look for the individuals
in it, forgets that there are individuals. Even those who have brothers,
sons, lovers there, for a moment almost forget them in the impression of
a mighty whole. The mind is slow to realize that this great dragon,
so terrible in its beauty, emitting light as it moves from