And here, from mere lack of space rather than of interesting matter, I must close my extracts from this incomparably elongated letter. I question, by the way, whether Colburne would have covered so much paper had he not been reasonably justified in imagining a pretty family picture of the Doctor reading and Miss Ravenel listening. CHAPTER X. THE RAVENELS FIND CAPTAIN COLBURNE IN GOOD QUARTERS. The spring and summer of 1862 was a time of such peace and pleasantness to the Tenth Barataria as if there had been no war. With the Major General commanding Carter was a favorite, as being a man who had seen service, a most efficient officer, an old regular and a West Pointer. The Tenth was a pet, as being clean, admirably accoutred, well-disciplined and thoroughly instructed in those formal niceties and watchful severities of guard duty which are harder to teach to new soldiers than the minutiæ of the manual, or the perplexities of field evolutions, or the grim earnestness of fighting. The Colonel was appointed Major of New Orleans, with a suspicion of something handsome in addition to his pay; the regiment was put on provost duty in the city, instead of being sent into the malarious mud of Camp Parapet or the feverish trenches of Vicksburgh. Colburne's letters of those days are full of braggadocio about the splendid condition of the Tenth and the peculiar favor with which it was viewed by the commanding general. Doctor Ravenel, in his admiration for the young captain, unwisely published some of these complacent epistles, thereby eliciting retorts and taunts from the literary champions of rival regiments, the _esprit du corps_ having already grown into a strong and touchy sentiment among the volunteer organizations.