Then, as the drill went on, and the privates came down on one knee to fire, or crouched down, or lay at length, with the cadet officers standing motionless behind them; what terribly exposed positions the chevrons seemed to have! What a mark for the enemy's guns was each straight figure, casting its motionless shadow across the sunlit grass. Bullets might whistle over the men on the ground--but for these! It was all too real; and the young sisters were glad when those on the ground sprang up, and leaders and men were merged in an equality of danger. One night there was the noisy, vivid, weird mortar drill; touched up with talk, flitting changes of place, comments, explanations, and fairyland bursts of red fire. What a night that was! The roar of the guns, the soft-spoken words; the flash-illumined smoke, the dark figures behind the "footlights" on the battery; the motley human mass which the crimson fire caught in its red glow. Less picturesque, but more breathless in interest, was the cavalry drill on the plain and the grand charge. In happy ignorance that surgeons and their attendants were in watchful waiting, the two girls found the whole thing just magnificent, and caught no hint of danger, even from other people's outcries. There was one lady in particular, handsome, well-dressed, and knowing everybody, whose son was in the drill, and whose fears were many and public. In the midst of the most harmless evolutions she was, as she phrased it, "on thorns"; and she danced about as if it were true. Up on a seat to see better; down again that she might not see at all; with little cries and shrieks and groans of fright or expostulation--it was droll enough. Rose thought she would watch her when the charge really came,--and forgot her as July forgets December. There had been a few minutes of seeming quiet, the squad all down by the library; but anyone who looked keenly could see this man examining his bridle, and that one tightening the girth. You could see them looking to their stirrups, or rising a little in the saddle to get a better seat. Then they began to move forward, slowly at first, then quicker, till the word was given: "Charge!" and horses and men came tearing along like a Kansas cyclone upon the resounding road.