"Here come the real heroes, Harry," said my crippled leader; "we are dandies and toy-soldiers, by the side of those infantry boys, Doctor, we cavalry fellows;" and we cavalry fellows would have hid if we honorably could. Yet hardly had he spoken when he and a passing field-officer cried out in mutual recognition, and from that time until the rear-guard was clear gone by we received what the newspapers call "a continuous ovation." A group of brigade officers went back with us to Squire Wall's, to supper, and you could see by the worship they paid Charlotte that they knew her story. Her strength was far overtaxed, and the moment the last fond straggler had gone we came in out of the splendid moonlight. "Now, Charlotte, my dear," began Miss Harper, "you are too terribly tired to--why, where is Charlotte; did she not come in with us from the--gate?" Ferry, too, was missing. Mrs. Wall made eyes at the inquirer, Estelle and Cecile began to speak but deferred to each other, and Camille, putting on a deadly exhaustion, whined as she tottered to her smiling guardian, "Kiss your sweet baby good-night, auntie dear, and"--with a hand reached out to Estelle--"make Naughty come, too." She turned to say good-night to Cecile but spoiled her kiss with an unintended laugh. The surgeon, Harry and I bowed from the room and stepped out to the water-bucket and gourd. From there we could see the missing two, lingering at the dooryard gate, in the bright moonlight. As we finished drinking, "Gentlemen," murmured Harry, "I fear our position is too exposed to be tenable." The surgeon started upstairs. "I'll join you directly, Doctor," Harry said, and in a lower voice added "Smith and I will just lounge in and out of the hall here to sort o' show nobody needn't be in any hurry, don't you see?" But the other jerked his thumb toward the half-closed parlor, where Miss Harper and Cecile sat close, to each other absorbed in some matter of the tenderest privacy. "They'll attend to that," he muttered; "come on to bed and mind your own business." Harry huffed absurdly. "You go mind yours," he retorted, and then more generously added, "we'll be with you in a minute." The surgeon went, and the aide-de-camp, as we began to pace the hall, fairly took my breath by remarking without a hint of self-censure, "Damn a frivolous man!" Then irrelatively he added, "Those two out at that gate--this is a matter of life and death with them;" and when I would have qualified the declaration, he broke in upon me--"Right, Dick, you're right, it _is_ worse; it's a choice between true life and death-in-life; whether they'll make life's long march in sunshine together or in darkness apart."