apologetically and moved my rein, she broke down under new temptation
and, as the wagon moved away, twittered after me unseen,--"Good-bye, Mr.
Smith."



II


LIEUTENANT FERRY

I passed on, flattered but scandalized, wasting no guesses on how she
knew me--if she really knew me at all--but taking my revenge by
moralizing on her, to myself, as a sign of the times, until brigade
headquarters were in full view, a few rods off the road; four or five
good, white wall-tents in a green bit of old field backed by a thicket
of young pines.

Midway of this space I met Scott Gholson, clerk to the Adjutant-general.
It was Gholson who had first spoken of me for this detail. He was an
East Louisianian, of Tangipahoa; aged maybe twenty-six, but in effect
older, having from birth eaten only ill-cooked food, and looking it;
profoundly unconscious of any shortcoming in his education, which he had
got from a small church-pecked college of the pelican sort that feed it
raw from their own bosoms. One of his smallest deficiencies was that he
had never seen as much art as there is in one handsome dinner-plate.
Now, here he was, riding forth to learn for himself, privately, he said,
why I did not appear. Yet he halted without turning, and seemed to wish
he had not found me.