Lola Laselle was overjoyed to meet him. "Every day I live I am prouder of my knight-errant than ever," she cried. "No lady of old ever had a braver or truer knight."
Lawrence found Leon Laselle had nearly recovered from his wound. Randolph Hamilton was in a fair way to recover, and was longing for the day to come when he could be exchanged and again fight for the principles he held dear.
When he heard of Lawrence being the chosen knight of Lola he begged to be allowed to become her knight too. "Then Lola," he said, "you will have a knight in both armies, and one of them will be sure to come back wearing the crown of victory."
"It will not do," laughed Lola, "and you are a naughty boy for fighting against the old flag. I had rather my knight be defeated in a good cause than be victor in a bad one, and Randolph, the cause for which you are fighting is a bad one, very bad."
Randolph sighed. Day by day Lola had become more precious to him, and as he looked at Lawrence he thought, "Why should she not prefer him to me?"
When Lawrence inquired so particularly about Dorothy, how she was getting along and how she liked Europe, a faint hope came to him that after all it might be Dorothy and not Lola that attracted Lawrence; and then he sighed again, for he remembered Dorothy's hatred for Yankees.
The next day Lawrence was floating down the river. When we meet him next it will be in that great campaign which ended in the capture of Vicksburg, the Gibraltar of the Mississippi River.
The End.
[1] A true incident.