"I can try, sir," said Dalton.
"But can you make it a good try?"
"I can, sir."
"That's the right spirit. Well, there's going to be a ball down at my headquarters to-night; not a little, two-penny, half-penny affair, but a real ball, a grand ball. The bands of the Fifth Virginia and of the Acadians will be there to play, alternating. You're invited and you're coming. I've already obtained leave from General Jackson for you both. I wish the general himself would come, but he's just received a theological book that Dr. Graham at Winchester has sent him, and he's bound to spend most of the night on that. Put on your best uniforms and be there just after dark."
Harry and Dalton accepted eagerly, and Stuart, a genuine knight of old alike in his courage and love of adornment, rode out of the grounds.
"There goes a man who certainly loves life," said Dalton.
"And don't you love it, and don't I love it, Mr. Philosopher and Cynic?" said Harry.
"So we do. But, as General Jackson said, General Stuart is a boy, younger than either of us."
"I hope to be the same kind of a boy when I'm his age."
Stuart was riding on, looking about with a luminous eye, fired by the spirit within him and the great landscape spread out before him. It was a noble landscape, the wooded ranges stretching to right and left, with the long sweep of rolling country between. The somber ruins of Fredericksburg were hidden from view just then, but in front of him flowed the great Rappahannock, still black with floods and ice yet floating near the banks.