When Harry had been in Frankfort about a week he received a letter from St. Clair, written from Richmond, urging him, if he could, to get an assignment to the East, and to come to that city, which was to be the permanent capital of the South. "We are here," he said, "looking the enemy in the face. Langdon and I are in the same company and I see Colonel Talbot and Major St. Hilaire every day. We are going to the front soon, and before the summer is out there will be a big battle followed by our taking of Washington." "But you must come, Harry, to Richmond and join us before we march. This is a fine town and all the celebrities are crowding in. You never saw such confidence and enthusiasm. Virginia was slow in joining us, but, since she has joined, she is with us heart and soul. Troops are pouring in all the time. Cannon and wagons loaded with ammunition and supplies are hurrying to the front. The Yankees are not threatening Richmond; we are threatening Washington. Be sure and get yourself transferred to the East, Harry, where the great things are going to happen. Friends are waiting for you here. Colonel Talbot and Major St. Hilaire have a lot of power and they will use it for you." Harry was walking on the hills that look down on the Capitol, when he read the letter and its warm words made his pulses leap with pleasure. He felt now the pull of opposing magnets. He wanted to remain in Frankfort with his father and see the issue, and he also wanted to join those South Carolina comrades of his in the East, where the battle fronts now lowered so ominously. He thought long over the letter, and, at last sat down by the monument to the Kentucky volunteers who fell at the battle of Buena Vista. The pull of the East was gradually growing the stronger. He did not see what he could do at Frankfort, and he wanted to be off there on the Virginia fields where the bayonets would soon meet. The curious feeling that war could not come here in his own land persisted in Harry. It was late in the afternoon with the lower tip of the sun just hid behind the far hills and the landscape that he looked upon was soft and beautiful. The green of spring was deep and tender. Everything rough or ugly was smoothed away by the first mellow touch of the advancing twilight. The hills were clothed in the same robe of green that lay over the valleys, and through the center of the circle flowed the deep Kentucky, serene and blue. While Harry's thoughts at that moment were on war, he really had no feeling against anybody. It was all general and impersonal. There is something pure and noble about a boy who comes out of a good home, something lofty to which the man later looks back with pride, not because the boy was wise or powerful, but because his heart was good.