FORE:
FORE:Three hours later the stars still gleamed down through the balmy night above the long westward-galloping column of our brigade, that for those three hours had not slackened from the one unmitigated speed. The Federal regiment of whose plans Charlotte had apprised Ferry had been camped well to southward of this course, but in the day just past they had marched to the north, intending a raid around our right and into our rear. To-night they were resting in a wide natural meadow through the middle of which ran this road we were on. Around the southern edge of this inviting camp-ground by a considerable stream of water; the northern side was on rising ground and skirted by woods, and in these woods as day began to break stood our brigade, its presence utterly unsuspected in all that beautiful meadow whitened over with lane upon lane of the tents of the regiment of Federal cavalry, whose pickets we had already silently surprised and captured. Now, as warily as quails, we moved along an unused, woodcutters' road and began to trot up a gentle slope beyond whose crest the forest sank to the meadow. We were within a few yards of this crest, when a small mounted patrol came up from the other side, stood an instant profiled against the sky, bent low, gazed, wheeled and vanished.
FORE:Lady Keeling will be only too gratified, said her husband.
THREE:Gratification was certainly not too strong a term to employ with regard to Lady Keelings feelings, nor, indeed, too strong to apply to Lady Inverbrooms when her call was brought to an end. The sublimity of Princesses was not to be had every day, and the fortnight that had elapsed since that memorable visit, with the return of the routine of undistinguished Bracebridge, had caused so prolonged a visit from a peeress to mount into Lady Keelings head like an hours steady drinking of strong wine.{280}I dont want to be paid at all, she said. It was most of it work done in office hours, when otherwise I should have been in the office here. I have done a certain amount in the evening, but I enjoyed it: I found it much more amusing than playing Patience.
THREE:"Oh, Arthur," said Rose, suddenly, "I want to be like this always, don't you?"Poor father, she said. Im sorry, whatever it is.
