The meal over, Stuart held out his hand as a step, from which Agatha lightly sprang into her saddle. Then he mounted the superb gray, which he always rode when battle was on, or when he had a gentlewoman under his charge. For there was a touch of the boyish dandy in Stuart, and a good deal more than a touch of that gallantry which prompts every true man of warm blood to honour womanhood with every possible attention. The horse was fit for his rider, and that is saying quite all that can be said in praise of a horse. Mounted upon him, Stuart was the bodily presentment of all that painters and sculptors have imagined the typical cavalier to be or to seem. Stalwart of figure, erect in carriage, his muscles showing themselves in graceful strength with every movement of his body, his head carried like that of a boy or a young bull, his beard closely clipped, his moustache standing out straight at the ends, and resembling that of Virginia's earliest knight errant, Captain John Smith, of Jamestown, Stuart was a picture to look upon, which the onlooker did not soon forget. His many-gabled slouch hat was decorated with streaming plumes, that helped to make of him a target for the enemy's sharpest sharpshooters whenever battle was on. Full of vigour, full of health, and full to the very lips of a boyish enthusiasm of life, he seemed never to know what weariness might signify, and never for one moment to abate the intensity of his purpose. He did all things as if all had been part of a great game in which he was playing for a championship. On this occasion, however, his manner was subdued, and his conversation serious in a degree unusual to one of his effervescent spirits. He was riding with Agatha Ronald for the very serious purpose of talking with her about details that must be carefully arranged with a view to her safety in the dangerous undertaking upon which she was about to enter. A word or two to Lieutenant Fauntleroy sent that officer with his escort squad to the front, while Stuart and his charge rode in rear.