"Do come and look, aunt," said Caroline; "it is not the same party that passed a little while ago. I know it by the sergeant, who has darker hair and eyes than the other. This is Lieutenant Bunting's recruiting party. He has handbills on all the corners, headed: 'List, list--oh, list!'" "Aunt Sophy," said Harriet, as they resumed their seats, "you cannot imagine what a lively summer we have had!" "I can easily imagine," replied Sophia, "that you almost lived out of the window." "How could we do otherwise," answered Harriet, "when there was so much to look at, particularly during the alarm? Alarms are certainly very exciting." "Undoubtedly," observed Sophia; "but what was the alarm?" "Oh! there has been one long alarm all summer; and it is still going on, or our volunteers would not stay so long at Camp Dupont. But there, it seems, they may have to remain till winter drives the British away from the Capes." "I conclude," said Miss Clements, "the alarm _par excellence_ was when the enemy sailed up the Chesapeake to attack Baltimore, and there was an apprehension of their crossing over to Philadelphia." "The very time," answered Harriet. "We had a troop of horse reconnoitering on the Chesapeake. Their camp was at Mount Bull, near Elkton. They were all gentlemen, and they acted in turn as videttes. One of them arrived here every evening with despatches for General Bloomfield concerning the movements of the enemy--and they still come. You know last evening, soon after your arrival, one of the times that I ran to the window was to see the vidette[73] galloping along the street, looking so superbly in his light-horseman's uniform, with his pistols in his holsters, and his horse's feet striking fire from the stones." [Footnote 73: _Estafette_, we believe, is the proper term, but the military couriers of that period were always called _videttes_ by the citizens.] "Once," said Caroline, "we heard a galloping in the middle of the night, and therefore we all got up and looked out. In a few minutes the streets were full of men who had risen and dressed themselves, and gone out to get the news. I was sorry that, being women, we could not do the same. But we sent Bob--you don't know how useful we find Bob. He is versed in all sorts of soldiers and officers, and every kind of uniform, and the right way of wearing it. He taught us to distinguish a captain from a lieutenant, and an infantry from an artillery officer,--silver for infantry, and gold for artillery,--and then there is the staff uniform besides, and the dragoons, and the rifle officers, and the engineers. Of course, I mean the regular army. As to volunteers and militia, we knew them long ago." "But you are forgetting the vidette that galloped through the street at midnight," said Sophia.