The east paled slowly as the day broke in a cloud, and the long shadows beside the fire lost their reddish glimmer. A little bird, dazed by the cold and the strange light, flew into the smoke against the stunted pine, and fell, a wet ball of feathers at Dan's feet. He picked it up, warmed it in his coat, and fed it from the loose crumbs in his pocket. When Pinetop awoke he was gently stroking the bird while he sang in a low voice:-- “Gay and happy, gay and happy, We'll be gay and happy still.” VII “I WAIT MY TIME” When he returned to Winchester it was to find Virginia already there as Jack Morson's wife. Since her marriage in late summer she had followed her husband's regiment from place to place, drifting at last to a big yellow house on the edge of the fiery little town. Dan, passing along the street one day, heard his name called in a familiar voice, and turned to find her looking at him through the network of a tall, wrought-iron gate. “Virginia! Bless my soul! Where's Betty?” he exclaimed amazed. Virginia left the gate and gave him her hand over the dried creepers on the wall. “Why, you look ten years older,” was her response. “Indeed! Well, two years of beggary, to say nothing of eight months of war, isn't just the thing to insure immortal youth, is it? You see, I'm turning gray.” The pallor of the long march was in his face, giving him a striking though unnatural beauty. His eyes were heavy and his hair hung dishevelled about his brow, but the change went deeper still, and the girl saw it. “You're bigger--that's it,” she said, and added impulsively, “Oh, how I wish Betty could see you now.” Her hand was upon the wall and he gave it a quick, pleased pressure. “I wish to heaven she could,” he echoed heartily. “But I shall tell her everything when I write--everything. I shall tell her that you are taller and stronger and that you have been in all the fights and haven't a scar to show. Betty loves scars, you see, and she doesn't mind even wounds--real wounds. She wanted to go into the hospitals, but I came away and mamma wouldn't let her.” “For God's sake, don't let her,” said Dan, with a shudder, his Southern instincts recoiling from the thought of service for the woman he loved. “There are a plenty of them in the hospitals and it's no place for Betty, anyway.” “I'll tell her you think so,” returned Virginia, gayly. “I'll tell her that--and what else?” He met her eyes smiling.