There was a sound of light, quick footsteps on the flooring of the rearward tent at the same time. The sergeant-major glanced up from his writing; looked at a vacant desk, then at the clock, then, inquiringly, at his regimental deity--the adjutant. It was just the hour of the day at which all manner of papers were coming down from division and brigade headquarters to be duly stamped, noted and stacked up for the colonel's action. This was the young clerk Morton's especial function, but Morton had left the office and was gone. CHAPTER II. The little party of visitors in the general's personal tent made a striking contrast to that assembled under the official canvas. In the latter, seated on camp stools and candle boxes or braced against the tent poles were nearly a dozen officers, all in the sombre dark blue regulation uniform, several in riding boots and spurs, some even wearing the heavy, frogged overcoat; all but two, juniors of the staff, men who stood on the shady side of forty, four of the number wearing on their shoulders the silver stars of generals of division or brigade, and among their thinning crops of hair the silver strands that told of years of service. One man alone, the commanding general, was speaking; all the others listened in respectful silence. In the gloom of that late, fog-shrouded afternoon a lantern or two would have been welcome, but the conference had begun while it was still light enough for the chief to read the memoranda on his desk, and now he was talking without notes. In the array of grave, thoughtful faces, some actually somber and severe in expression, a smile would have seemed out of place, yet, all of a sudden, grim features relaxed, deep-set eyes twinkled and glanced quickly about in search of kindred sympathetic spirits, and more than half the bearded faces broadened into a grin of merriment and as many heads were suddenly uplifted, for just as the gray-haired chief ended an impressive period with the words: "It will be no laughing matter if I can lay hold of them," there burst upon the surprised ears of the group a peal of the merriest laughter imaginable--the rippling, joyous, musical laughter of happy girlhood mingling with the hearty, wholesome, if somewhat boyish, outburst of jollity, of healthful youth. "Merciful powers!" exclaimed the chief. "I had forgotten all about those people. They must have been here twenty minutes." "Sixty-five, sir, by the watch," said a saturnine-looking soldier, tall and stalwart, and wearing the shield of the adjutant-general's department on the collar of his sack coat. "They ought to go, then," was the placid suggestion of a third officer, a man with keen eyes, thin, almost ascetic, face, but there twitched a quaint humor about the lines of his lips. "That visit's past the retiring age." And then another peal of merriment from the adjoining tent put stop to conversation.