She held out both hands to me, her eyes dancing. Three years have passed since then, but if I were a painter, I could make her portrait, reproducing every detail! Nothing has escaped my memory; I still hear her voice; the sun of 1868, not of 1865, seems to shine on the rosy cheeks framed by masses of golden ringlets! I would like to record our talk as we rode on toward Petersburg--describe that ride--a charming episode, flashing like a gleam of sunlight, amid the dark days, when the black clouds had covered the whole landscape. In this volume there is so much gloom! Suffering and death have met us so often! Can you wonder, my dear reader, that the historian of such an epoch longs to escape, when he can, from the gloom of the tragedy, and paint those scenes of comedy which occasionally broke the monotonous drama? To write this book is not agreeable to me. I wear out a part of my life in composing it. To sum up, in cold historic generalities that great epoch would be little--but to enter again into the hot atmosphere; to live once more that life of the past; to feel the gloom, the suspense, the despair of 1865 again--believe me, that is no trifle! It wears away the nerves, and tears the heart. The cheek becomes pale as the MS. grows! The sunshine is yonder, but you do not see it. The past banishes the present. Across the tranquil landscape of March, 1868, jars the cannon, and rushes the storm wind of March, 1865! The cloud was black above, therefore, but Katy Dare made the world bright with her own sunshine, that day. All the way to Petersburg, she ran on in the most charming prattle. The winding Boydton road, like the banks of the lower Rowanty, was made vocal with her songs--the “Bird of Beauty” and the whole repertoire. Nor was Tom Herbert backward in encouraging his companion’s mirth. Tom was the soul of joy. He sang “Katy! Katy! don’t marry any other!” with an unction which spoke in his quick color, and “melting glances” as in the tones of his laughing voice. Riding along the famous highway, upon which only a solitary cavalryman or a wagon occasionally appeared, the little maiden and her lover made the pine-woods ring with their songs, their jests, and their laughter! It is good to be young and to love. Is there any thing more charming? For my part I think that the curly head holds the most wisdom! Tell me which was the happier--the gray-haired general yonder, oppressed by care, or the laughing youth and maiden? It is true there is something nobler, however, than youth, and joy, and love. It is to know that you are doing your duty--to bear up, like Atlas, a whole world upon your shoulders--to feel that, if you fall, the whole world will shake--and that history will place your name beside that of Washington! As the sun began to decline, we rode into Petersburg, and bidding Katy and Tom adieu, I returned to my Cedars.