“DEAR LEILA:  I am just now with the Second Corps, but where you will know in a week; now I must not say.—­”

“What’s the date?” asked Penhallow.

“There is none.”

“Look at the envelope.”

“I tore it up, sir.”

“Never throw away an envelope until you have read the letter.”  Ann looked pleased—­that was James Penhallow, his old self.  Leila read on.

“I am glad to be under canvas, and you know my faith in General Grant.

“Tell Aunt Ann I have had three servants in two weeks.  These newly freed blacks are like mere children and quite useless, or else—­well—­one was brutal to my horse.  I sometimes wish Josiah was twins and I had one of him.—­”

“What’s that?” asked Penhallow.  “Twins—­I don’t understand.”

“He wishes he had a servant like Josiah, Uncle.”

“Well, let him go to John,” said the Colonel, with something of his old positive manner.

“But you would miss him, James.”

“I will not,” he returned, and then—­“What else is there?”

“Oh—­nothing—­except that he will write again soon, and that he met Mr. Rivers in Washington.  That is all—­a very unsatisfactory letter.”

For a day or two the colonel said no more of Josiah, and then asked if he had gone, and was so obviously annoyed that Ann gave way as usual and talked of her husband’s wish to Josiah.  The old life of Westways and Grey Pine was over, and Josiah was allowed by Ann to do so little for Penhallow that the black was not ill-pleased to leave home again for the army life and to be with the man whom as a lad he had trusted and who had helped him in a day of peril.

No one thought of any need for a pass.  He was amply supplied with money and bade them good-bye.  He put what he required in a knapsack, and leaving Westways for the second time and with a lighter heart, set off afoot to catch the train at Westways Crossing.  The old slave was thus put upon a way which was to lead to renewed and unpleasant acquaintance with one of the minor characters of my story.

Tired of unaccustomed idleness Josiah grinned as he went across country thinking of the directions he had received from Leila of how he was to find John Penhallow.

“You know he is captain of engineers, Josiah.  Now how are you going to find him?  An army is as big as a great city, and in motion, too.”

“Well, missy,” said Josiah, “the way I’ll find him is the way dog Caesar finds you in the woods.”  He would hear no more and left her.

Josiah knew many people in Washington, black and white, and after some disappointments went with a lot of remounts for cavalry to join the army in the Wilderness, where he served variously with the army teams.  On an afternoon late in May, 1864, he strode on, passing by the long lines of marching men who filled the roadways on their way to the crossing of the North Anna River.  He had been chaffed, misdirected, laughed at or civilly