"I am going to make you my sergeant-major. I have General Jackson's request to recognise your good conduct under his eye to-day. Even without his suggestion I should wish to have you with me as my staff sergeant. I have kept that post open until now, in order that I might choose the best man for it." It should be explained that the rank of sergeant-major is the very highest non-commissioned rank known to military life. Ordinarily, the sergeant-major is a regimental non-commissioned officer. But following the French system, the Confederate regulations allowed every battery of field-artillery a sergeant-major, if its captain so desired. He outranked all other non-commissioned officers, and usually exercised a lieutenant's command in battle--always if any commissioned officer were absent or disabled. Thus it came about that Sergeant-Major Baillie Pegram was too busy on that morning to look up acquaintances among the spectators gathered there. He had orders to execute, and details of many kinds to look after, including the making out of that morning report which every company in the service must daily render, and upon which the commanding general must rely for information as to the exact number of fighting men he has available for duty. Baillie had just completed this task, when some one brought him news that a lady in a carriage near by wished to speak with him. Having nothing now to do, he responded to the call, and found Agatha Ronald awaiting him. She sat in her carriage alone. In her lap was a work-basket, fully equipped for that mending which these women always came prepared to do when soldiers were passing by. Baillie had no mending to be done, but Agatha bade him remove his jacket and deliver it into her charge. "We've heard what happened in the Valley the other day," she said, "and it is not seemly for a sergeant-major to be on duty without the insignia of his rank. Red is the artillery colour, I believe, and your marks are three chevrons, with three arches connecting them, are they not? Fortunately, I brought a roll of red braid. So let me have your coat, please, and I'll readjust your costume to your rank." Agatha spoke glibly, but it was under manifest constraint. She forced and feigned a lightness of mood which she did not feel, and her manner deceived Baillie Pegram completely, as it was meant to do. "What a fool I am," he thought, "to expect anything else. She was embarrassed when I last saw her, and worried, but that was all on account of her aunts. She is her own mistress to-day, and--well, it is better so. There'll be a fight to-morrow, and that's fortunate." At that point the girl interrupted his meditations by saying, in her assumed tone of lightness, which he so greatly misinterpreted: "I know there is war between your house and mine, but I'm going to give aid and comfort to the enemy, if it comforts you to have your chevrons properly sewed on."