That was the odd, original, mysterious, incomprehensible poem, which Katy Dare carolled in the sunset that evening. It may seem stupid to some--to me the words and the air are charming, for I heard them from the sweetest lips in the world. Indeed there was something so pure and childlike about the young girl, that I bowed before her. Her presence made me better--banished all discordant emotions. All about her was delicate and tender, and pure. Like her “bird of bright plumage” she seemed to have flitted here to utter her carol, after which she would open her wings and disappear! Katy ran on, in the pauses of her singing, with a hundred little jests, interspersed with her sweet childlike laughter, and I was more and more enchanted--when all at once I saw her turn her head over her shoulder. A bright flush came to her cheeks as she did so; her songs and laughter ceased; then--a step behind us! I looked back, and found the cause of her sudden “dignity,” her demure silence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from the maiden’s mind. Coming on rapidly, with springy tread, I saw--Tom Herbert! Tom Herbert, radiant; Tom Herbert, the picture of happiness; Tom Herbert, singing in his gay and ringing voice:-- “Katy! Katy! Don’t marry any other! You’ll break my heart and kill me dead, And you’ll be hung for murder!” Wretch!--I could cheerfully have strangled him! VII. THE STUART HORSE ARTILLERY. An hour afterward I was at the camp of the Stuart horse artillery. Five minutes after greeting Tom, who had sought Katy, at “Disaway’s”--been directed to the woods--and there speedily joined us--I left the young ones together, and made my way back to the mansion. There are few things, my dear reader, more disagreeable than--just when you are growing poetical--when blue eyes have excited your romantic feelings--when your heart has begun to glow--when you think “I am the cause of all this happiness, and gayety!”--there are few things I say--but why say it? In thirty seconds the rosy-faced youngster Tom, had driven the antique and battered Surry quite from the mind of the Bird of Beauty. That discomfited individual, therefore, took his way back sadly to Disaway’s, leaving the children his blessing; declined the cordial invitations to spend the night, mounted his horse, and rode to find Will Davenant, at the horse artillery. Their camp was in the edge of a wood, near the banks of the Rowanty; and having exchanged greetings with my old comrades of the various batteries, and the gallant Colonel Chew, their chieftain, I repaired to Will Davenant’s head-quarters. These consisted of a breadth of canvass, stretched beneath a tree in the field--in front of which burned a fire.