"The funniest thing has happened! A fellow in our company,--and one of the best fellows he is too! but I can't help laughing!--he met his girl to-day, and they suddenly took it into their heads to get married; so they sent two of their friends to get their licenses for them, one, one way, and the other another way, for they live in different places. And the fellow's license has come, and the girl's hasn't, and they wouldn't have time to go to a minister's now if it had. It is too bad! but isn't it funny? The fellow is one of my very best friends. I wrote to you about him; Abe Atwater. There he is, with his girl!" And Frank pointed out the tall young soldier, standing stately and taciturn, but with a strong emotion in that usually mild, grave face of his, perceptible enough to those who knew him. His girl was at his side, crying. "How I pity her!" said Helen. "But he takes it coolly enough, I should think." "He takes every thing that way," said Frank; "but you can't tell much by his face how he feels, though I can see he is biting hard to keep his heart down now, straight as he stands." "I'll speak to her," said Helen; and while Frank accosted Atwater, she made acquaintance with the girl. "Yes," said the soldier, "it would be better to know I was leaving a wife behind, to think of me and look for my coming back. But I never knew she cared so much for me; and now it's too late." "To think," said the girl to Helen, "he has loved me all along, but never told me, because he thought I wouldn't have him! And now he is going, and may be I shall never see him again! And we want to be married, and my license hasn't come!" And she poured out her sorrows into the bosom of the sympathizing Helen, with whom suffering and sympathy made her at once acquainted. Just then the signal sounded for the train to be in readiness to start. And there were hurried partings, and tears in many a soldier's eye. And Frank's mother breathed into his ear her good-by counsel and blessing. And Atwater was bidding his girl farewell, when a man came bounding along the platform with a paper in his hand--the marriage license. "Too late now!" said Atwater, with a glistening smile. "We are off!" "But here is a minister!" cried Helen,--"Mr. Eggleston!--O, Captain Edney! have the train wait until this couple can be married. It won't take a minute!" The case of the lovers was by this time well understood, not only by Captain Edney and Mr. Egglestone, but also by the conductor of the train and scores of soldiers and citizens. An interested throng crowded to witness the ceremony. The licenses were in the hands of the minister, and with his musket at _order arms_ by his right side, and his girl at his left, Atwater stood up to be married, as erect and attentive as if he had been going through the company drill. And in a few words Mr. Egglestone married them, Frank holding Atwater's musket while he joined hands with his bride.