The settlement of his mother's estate and of his own pecuniary affairs occupied Colburne's time until the early part of October. By then he had invested his property as well as might be, rented the much-loved old homestead, taken a room in the New Boston House, and was fully prepared to bid good-bye to native soil, and, if need be, to life. Miss Ravenel was a strong though silent temptation to remain and to exist, but he resisted her with the heroism which he subsequently exhibited in combating male rebels. One morning, as he left the hotel rather later than usual to go to his office, his eyes fell upon a high-colored face and gigantic brown mustache, which he could not have failed to recognize, no matter where nor when encountered. There was the wounded captive of Bull Run, as big chested and rich complexioned, as audacious in eye and haughty in air, as if no hurt nor hardship nor calamity had ever befallen him. He checked Colburne's eager advance with a cold stare, and passed him without speaking. But the young fellow hardly had time to color at this rebuff, when, just as he was opening the outer door, a baritone voice arrested him with a ringing, "Look here!" "Beg pardon," continued the Lieutenant-Colonel, coming up hastily. "Didn't recognize you. It's quite a time since our pic-nic, you know." Here he showed a broad grin, and presently burst out laughing, as much amused at the past as if it did not contain Bull Run. "What a jolly old pic-nic that was!" he went on. "I have shouted a hundred times to think of myself passing the wine and segars to those prim old virgins. Just as though I had bowsed into the House Beautiful, among Bunyan's damsels, and offered to treat the crowd!" Again the Lieutenant-Colonel laughed noisily, his insolent black eyes twinkling with merriment. Colburne looked at him and listened to him with amazement. Here was a man who had lately been in what was to him the terrible mystery of battle; who had fallen down wounded and been carried away captive while fighting heroically for the noblest of causes; who had witnessed the greatest and most humiliating overthrow which ever befel the armies of the republic; who yet did not allude to any of these things, nor apparently think of them, but could chat and laugh about a pic-nic. Was it treasonable indifference, or levity, or the sublimity of modesty? Colburne thought that if _he_ had been at Bull Run, he never could have talked of any thing else. "Well, how are you?" demanded Carter. "You are looking a little pale and thin, it seems to me." "Oh, I am well enough," answered Colburne, passing over that subject with modest contempt, as not worthy of mention. "But how are _you_? Have you recovered from your wound?" "Wound? Oh! yes; mere bagatelle; healed up some time ago. I shouldn't have been caught if I hadn't been stunned by my horse falling. The wound was nothing." "But you must have suffered in your confinement," said Colburne, determined to appreciate and pity.