Lloyd looked at her in blank dismay, and the blank dismay on the face of her father was nearly as marked, but the latter's anxiety was due to a different cause—what would his wife decide if she were here!—for every one who knew the Fishers was well aware that Guy Fisher, albeit a man of much force in his own domain of business or military life, "sung mighty small" in all matters in which his wife had concern.
Lloyd rallied to the attack and continued to explain that he had orders detaching him, showing that he would be stationary, in command of a fort in the far South for some time, and that Millie would be in a position to be comfortable.
"But can I ride horseback there?" she stipulated. "I have just found out what I can do in that line!"
She liked to describe this conversation afterward. Her lover was the most serious and literal-minded of men, anxious and doubtful, and her father the prey of vacillation and indecision. They looked alternately at her and at each other with an expression of startled bewilderment as she spoke, seeking to adjust what she had said with their own knowledge of the facts.
The flying column was once more in motion, and one evening, after a considerable distance southward had been accomplished, the leave both of Colonel Fisher and Colonel Lloyd being close upon expiration and decision exigent, the doubting, anxious father gave his consent.
The young people were married like campaigners under a tree in a beautiful magnolia grove, the rhododendron blooming everywhere in the woods and the mocking-birds in full song. Colonel Lloyd was in uniform, armed and spurred, Miss Fisher in her hat and riding-habit, which last she wore with peculiar elegance; as the skirts of the day were of great length, the superfluous folds were caught up and carried over one arm, and it was said she had attained her graceful proficiency in this art, which was esteemed of much difficulty, by constant practice before the long mirror in her wardrobe at home. She used to tell afterward of the beautiful site, the velvet turf, the magnolia blooms, the rhododendron blossoms, the singing mocking-birds. Then she would enumerate the brilliant martial assemblage that witnessed the ceremony, the men of high rank in full uniform; the wives of a number of them—refugees in the Confederacy "seeking for a home," as the sardonically humorous song of that day phrased it—also graced the occasion. Her father and brothers, all the six Fisher men, were present, and she used to say, with the tone of an after-thought, but with a glint of mischief in her eye, "And Colonel Lloyd—he was there, too!"
There, but hardly up to the standard. He was a man whose courage had been of especial note, even in those days when bravery seemed the rule. He had had, too, exceptional opportunities to display his mettle. But on this occasion his terror was so palpable that he trembled perceptibly; he was pale and agitated; he fumbled for the ring and occasioned a general fear that he might let it fall—altogether furnishing an admirable exhibition of the stage fright usual with bridegrooms.
All these details did she observe and recollect and even his gravity would relax as she rehearsed them in after years. It was considered one of the evidences of her incurable frivolity that she seemed to care nothing for that momentous incident of her experience in those days, hardly to remember it,—the exploit by which she had saved the lives of three men, sore harassed and beset; but she found endless source of interest in the reminiscence of trifles such as the incongruous aspect of the chaplain who officiated at the wedding ceremony, with his spurs showing on his reverend heels beneath his surplice, and the brass buttons on his sleeves as he lifted his hands in benediction,—which afforded her a glee of retrospect.