When matters had settled down into apathetic idleness after the battle of Manassas, Agatha made occasion to visit the army. Officers at Fairfax Court-house had their wives and daughters with them at their headquarters then, and many of these were Agatha's intimates, whom she might visit without formal invitation.
At their quarters, she received visits from such of her friends as belonged to the cavalry forces stationed thereabouts. In her intercourse with these, she steadily maintained the innocent little fiction that she was there solely for social purposes, and to see the splendid army that had so recently won an astonishing victory.
One day, she learned that the picturesque cavalier, General J. E. B. Stuart, had boldly pushed his outposts to Mason's and Munson's Hills, and established his headquarters under a tree, within easy sight of Washington. She instantly developed an intense desire to visit him there. It happened that she knew Stuart and his family personally, and had often dined in the great cavalry leader's company at her own and other homes. So she said one day, to a young cavalry officer, who was calling upon her:
"I want you to do me a very great service. I want you to ask General Stuart to let me visit him at the outposts. He'll offer to come here to call upon me instead, for he is always gallant, but you are to tell him I will not permit that. The service needs him at the front, and I want to visit him there. Besides, I particularly want to take a peep at Washington City in its new guise as a foreign capital which we are besieging."
The young man remonstrated. He protested that there was very great danger in the attempt—that raids from the picket-lines were of daily occurrence, that the firing was often severe—and all the rest of it, wherefore General Stuart would almost certainly forbid the young lady's proposed enterprise.
The girl calmly looked the young man in the eyes—he was an old friend whom she had known from her childhood—and said, very solemnly:
"Charlie, I am no more afraid of bullets than you are. My heart is set upon this visit, and you must arrange it for me. As for General Stuart, I'll manage him, if you'll carry a note to him for me."
That young man had once begun to make love to Agatha, and she had checked him gently and affectionately in time to spare his pride, and to make of him her willing knight for all time to come. So he answered promptly:
"I'll carry your note, of course, and if Stuart gives permission, I'll beg to be myself your escort. Then, if anybody bothers you with bullets or anything else, it'll be a good deal the worse for him."
The girl thanked him in a way that would have made a hero of him in her defence had occasion served, and presently she scribbled a little note and placed it in the young cavalryman's hands for delivery. It was simple enough, but it was so worded as to make sure that Stuart would promptly grant its request. It ran as follows: