Hugh and Rocket, they would make a splendid match, and so Alice thought, as, on the day when Rocket was led away, she stood with her arms around his graceful neck, whispering to him the words of love she would fain have sent his master. She had recovered from the first shock of Hugh’s enlistment. She could think of him now calmly as a soldier; could pray that God would keep him, and even feel a throb of pride that one who had lived so many years in Kentucky, then poising almost equally in the scale, should come out so bravely for the right, though by that act he called down curses on his head from those at home who favored Rebellion, and who, if they fought at all, would cast in their lot with the seceding States. She had written to Hugh telling him how proud she was of him, and how her sympathy and prayers would follow him everywhere. “And if,” she had added, in concluding, “you are sick, or wounded, I will come to you as a sister might do. I will find you wherever you are.” She had sent this letter to him three weeks before, and now she stood caressing the beautiful Rocket, who sometimes proudly arched his long neck, and then looked wistfully at the sad group gathered round him, as if he knew it was no ordinary parting. Col. Tiffton, who had heard what was going on, had ridden over to expostulate with Mrs. Worthington against sending Rocket North. “Better keep him at home,” he said, “and tell Hugh to come back, and let those who had raised the muss settle their own difficulty.” The old colonel, who was a native of Virginia, did not know exactly where he stood. “He was very patriotic,” he said, “but hanged if he knew which side to take—both were wrong. He didn’t go Nell’s doctrine, for Nell was a _rabid Secesh_; neither did he swallow Abe Lincoln, and he’d advise Alice to keep a little more quiet, for there was no knowing what the hot heads would do; they might pounce on Spring Bank any night.” “Let them,” and Alice’s blue eyes flashed brightly while her girlish figure seemed to expand and grow higher as she continued; “they will find no cowards here. I never touched a revolver in my life. I am quite as much afraid of one that is not loaded as of one that is, but I’ll conquer the weakness. I’ll begin to-day. I’ll learn to handle fire-arms. I’ll practice shooting at a mark, and if Hugh is killed I’ll——” She could not tell what she would do, for the woman conquered all other feelings, and laying her face on Rocket’s silken mane, she sobbed aloud. “There’s pluck, by George!” muttered the old colonel. “I most wish Nell was that way of thinking.” It was time now for Rocket to go, and ‘mid the deafening howls of the negroes and the tears of Mrs. Worthington and Alice he was led away, the latter watching him until he was lost to sight beyond the distant hill, then falling on her knees she prayed, as many a one has done, that God would be with our brave soldiers, giving them the victory, and keeping _one_ of them, at least, from falling.