A light footfall sounded behind us, and Camille gave both her hands to my companion. "I was in the hall," she said, "telling Cecile she was like a white star that had come out by day, when I saw you here looking like a great red one; and you're still more like a red, red rose, and I've come to get some of your fragrance." "I'd exchange for yours any day, and thank you, dear," responded Charlotte; "you're a bunch of sweet-peas. Isn't she, Mr. Smith?" The bunch beamed an ecstatic bliss. What was the explanation; had her father arrived, or--or somebody else? The question went through me like an arrow. Was the cause of this heavenly radiance somebody else?--that was the barb; or was it I?--that was the soothing feather. In gratitude for Charlotte's word she sank backward in a long obeisance. "May it please your ladyship, dinner is served. Oh, Mr. Smith, I've been listening to Mr. Gholson talking with aunt Martha and Estelle; I don't wonder you and he are friends; I think his ideas of religion are perfectly beautiful!" At our two-o'clock dinner I found that our company had been reinforced. On one side of Camille sat I; but on the other side sat "Harry." XXXII A MARTYR'S WRATH Great news the aide-de-camp brought us; from Lee, from Longstreet, Bragg and Johnston. Johnston was about to fall upon Grant's rear. Across the Mississippi Dick Taylor was expected this very day to deal the same adversary a crippling blow, and it was partly to mask this movement that we had made our feint upon the Federals near Natchez. Now these had fallen back, and our force had cunningly slipped away southward. Only General Austin and his staff had not gone when Lieutenant Helm left the front, and they were about to go. Toward the end of the meal Mrs. Sessions, in her amiable plantation drawl, said she hoped the bearer of so much good tidings had not come to take away Lieutenant Ferry; and when Harry, flushing, asked what had given her such a thought, the simple soul replied that Mr. Gholson had told her he "suspicioned as much." At once there arose the prettiest clamor all round the board, in which Charlotte and Cecile joined for the obvious purpose of making confusion. Gholson turned yellow and spoke things nobody heard, and Ferry tried to drown Harry's loud declarations that the word he had brought to Ferry was for him to stay, and that he had found him saddling up to go in search of his company. "Isn't that so, Ned?--Now,--now,--isn't that so?"