"It's all right, Mother, I believe," said Hiel, surveying himself first over one shoulder and then the other, and consulting the looking-glass fringed with gilt knobs that hung in the widow's "keeping-room." "Yes, indeed, Hiel, it's all right. I've kep' camphor gum with it to keep out the moths, and wrapped it up to save the gold, and I don't see that it's a grain altered since it came home new. It's just as new as ever 'twas." Hiel may be pardoned for smiling somewhat complacently on the image in the glass--which certainly was that of a very comely youth--and when he reflected that Nabby would to-morrow see him at the head of his company his heart swelled with a secret exultation. It is not alone the privilege of the fair sex to know when things are becoming to them, and Hiel knew when he looked well, as surely as if any one had told him. He gave himself a patronizing wink and whistled a strain of "Yankee Doodle" as he turned away from the glass, perhaps justly confiding in the immemorial power which military trappings have always exercised over the female heart. It was with reluctance that he laid aside the fascinating costume, and set himself to brightening up here and there a spot upon his sword-hilt or blade that called for an extra touch. "We must have breakfast early to-morrow, Mother; the boys will be here by sunrise." "Never you fear," said the widow. "I've got everything ready, and we'll be all through by that time; but it's as well to get to bed now." And so in a few minutes more the candles were out and only the sound of the frogs and the whippoorwills broke the stillness of the cottage. Long before the nine o'clock bell rung Hiel and his mother were happy in the land of dreams. In the parsonage, too, there had been an effort of discipline to produce the needed stillness and early hours called for by to-morrow's exactions. The boys, who had assisted at the dragging in of the cannon and heard its first reverberation, were in a most inflammatory state of patriotism, longing wildly for gunpowder. In those days no fire-crackers or other vents of the kind had been provided for the relief of boys under pressure of excitement, and so they were forced to become explosive material themselves, and the walls of the parsonage rang with the sound. Dolly also was flying wildly around, asking Nabby questions about to-morrow and running away before she got her answer, to listen to some new outburst from the boys. Nabby, however, had her own very decisive ways of putting things, and settled matters at last by putting her to bed, saying as she did so, "Now, Dolly Cushing, you just shut up. You are crazier than a bobolink, and if you don't be still and go to sleep I won't touch to take you with me to see the trainers to-morrow. Your ma said you might go with me if you'd be good; so you just shut up and go to sleep;" and Dolly shut her eyes hard and tried to obey.