“Grandma!” softly cried Flora, as if sharing the general elation, but had begun again to tell of Greenleaf, when from far over in Camp Street her subtle ear caught a faint stray sigh of saxhorns.

“Well? well? about the Yankee—?” urged Madame.

“Oh, a trifle!  He was to go that night, and thinking he might some day return in very different fashion and we be glad to make use of him, I—­” The speaker’s lithe form straightened and her gaze went off to the left.  “Here they come!” she said, and out where Camp Street emerges, a glint of steel, a gleam of brass, a swarming of the people that way, and again a shimmer of brass and steel, affirmed her word that the long, plumed, bristling column had got back to the arms of its darling Canal Street.

“Yes,” cried many, “they’re turning this way!”

“Well?—­Well?” insisted the old lady amid the rising din.  “And so you—­you?”

“Be more careful,” murmured the girl.  “I told him that our convictions—­about this war—­yours and mine—­not Charlie’s—­are the same as his.”

A charming sight she was, even in that moment of public enthusiasm and spectacle, holding the wondering stare of her companion with a gayety that seemed ready to break into laughter.  The dainty Madame went limp, and in words as slow and soft as her smile, sighed, “You are a genius!”

“No, only the last thing you would suspect—­a good housekeeper.  I have put him up in sugar.”

The distant martial strains became more coherent.  In remote balconies handkerchiefs fluttered wildly, and under nearer and nearer ones the people began to pack closer and choose their footing along the curb.  Presently from the approaching column came who but Hilary Kincaid, galloping easily over the slippery pavements.  Anna saw his eyes sweep the bank of human flowers (with its occasional male caterpillar) on Moody’s balcony and light upon Flora.  He lifted his kepi and halted.  One could read his soft questions.

“All right?  All ready?  Where are the others?—­Ah!” He sent an eager salutation to the Callenders, and two joyfully bowed, but Anna gave no sign.  With great dignity her gaze was bent beyond him on the nearing host, and when Constance plucked her arm she tardily looked three wrong ways.

The rider could not wait.  The police were pressing back the jubilant masses, swarms of ladies on the rear forms were standing up, and Flora, still seated, had leaned down beamingly and was using every resource of voice and fan to send him some word through the tumult of plaudits and drums.  He spurred close.  In a favoring hush—­drum-corps inviting the band—­she bent low and with an arch air of bafflement tried once more, but an outburst of brazen harmonies tore her speech to threads.  Suddenly—­

  “Ever of thee I’m fondly dreaming—­”

pealed the cornets, pumped the trombones, whipping it out, cracking it off, with a rigor of rhythm to shame all peace-time languishments—­