“We haven’t been able to get any clew as to his name or regiment.  The guards at the station said he belonged to the Twelfth Virginia, but none of the members of that body in the city recognize him.  You know him?”

“Yes.  He is of my regiment,” Dick said, neglecting to mention the regiment.  “I will send word to his friends at once and have him removed.”

“Oh, we are proud and happy to have him here.  Our only anxiety was lest he should die and his family remain in ignorance.  But, now that you identify him, we hope that we may be permitted to keep him until his recovery.”

It was a stately matron who spoke with such a manner, as Dick thought, must be the mark of nobility in other lands.  He learned, with surprise, that the Atterbury physician was ministering to Barney, though there was nothing strange in that, since the doctor was the favorite practitioner of the well-to-do in the city.  That night he wrote to Jack, asking instructions, and the next day received a note, written by Olympia, advising that Barney be left with his present hosts until he recovered consciousness; that by that time Vincent would be able to come up to town and explain matters to the deluded family.  The better to carry out this plan, Dick was bidden to return to Rosedale, and thus, six weeks after the battle and dispersion, all our Acredale personages, by the strange chances of war, were assembled within sight of the rebel capital, and, though in the hands of friends, as absolutely cut off from their home and duties as if they had been captured in a combat with the Indians.

CHAPTER XVI.

A MASQUE IN ARCADY.

In the latter days of September, the life at Rosedale was but a faint reminder of the hospital it had seemed in August.  The young men were able to take part in all the simple gayeties devised by Rosa to make the time pass agreeably.  Wesley was still subject to dizziness if exposed to the sun, but Jack and Vincent were robust as lumbermen.  Mrs. Sprague and Merry sighed wearily in the seclusion of their chambers for the Northern homeside, but they banished all signs of discontent before their warm-hearted hosts.  There was as yet no exchange arranged between the hostile Cabinets of Richmond and Washington.  Even Boone’s potent influence among the magnates of his party had not served him to effect Wesley’s release nor enabled him to return to watch over the boy’s fortunes.  There was no one at Rosedale sorry for the latter calamity outside of Wesley and Kate.  I believe even she was secretly not heart-broken, for she knew that her father would be antipathetic to the outspoken ladies of Rosedale.