The so-called "street" of the cavalry encampment lay well to the rear. Hardly a sound emanated therefrom save now and then the echo of a step, the jingling of a spur or sabre, and sometimes voices in drowsy talk--perhaps a snatch of song or the thrumming of a guitar. A sort of luminous hush pervaded the atmosphere of the sunny spring afternoon. The shadows slanted long on the lush blue-grass that, despite the trampling to which it had been subjected, sent a revivifying impetus from its thickly interlaced mat of roots and spread a turf like dark rich velvet. The impulse of bloom was rife throughout nature--in a sort of praise offering for the grace of the spring. Humble untoward sprigs of vegetation, nameless, one would think, unnoticed, must needs wear a tiny corolla or offer a chalice full of dew--so minute, so apart from observation, that their very creation seemed a work of supererogation. The dandelions' rich golden glow was instarred along the roadside, and there was a bunch of wood violets in the roots of the maple near Ashley's head, the branches of the tree holding far down their dark garnet blossoms with here and there clusters of flat wing-like seed-pods, striped with green and brown. A few paces distant was a tulip-tree, gloriously aflare with red and yellow blooms through all its boughs to the height of eighty feet, and between was swung Ashley's hammock with Ashley luxuriously disposed therein. His eyes were on the infinite roseate ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains in the amethystine distance; the purple Chilhowee darkly loomed closer at hand, and about the foot-hills was belted the placid cestus of tents, all gleaming white, while the splendid curves of the river, mirroring the sky, vied with the golden west. Nothing could have more picturesquely suggested the warrior in his hours of ease. The consciousness of one's own graces ought to add a zest to their value, especially when vanity is as absolutely harmless as Vertnor Ashley's enjoyment of his own good opinion of himself. "What news? Why don't you believe it? Grape-vine?" asked Ashley. (Grape-vine was the telegraph of irresponsible rumor.) "No--no--nothing fresh from the army. I heard a rumor to-day about Miss Fisher--that she is engaged to be married." "I am not surprised--the contrary would surprise me." Seymour looked alarmed. "Had you heard it, too?" "No; but from what I have seen of 'Sister Millie,' as they call her about here, I should say she is a fine recruiting officer." There was an interval of silence, while Ashley swung back and forth in the hammock and Seymour sat in a clumped posture on the camp-stool, his hands on his knees, and his gloomy eyes on the square toes of his new boots. At length he resumed:-- "Did you ever hear of a fellow that hails from somewhere near here named Lloyd?" "Lawrence Lloyd?" "That's the man," said Seymour.