“Think it over, son.  I can’t see that you should go, but if you think you ought, I shall have nothing to say.  Have you made up your mind?”

Crittenden hesitated.

“Not quite.”

“Think it over very carefully, then—­please—­for my sake.”  Her voice trembled, and, with a pang, Crittenden thought of the suffering she had known from one war.  Basil’s way was clear, and he could never ask the boy to give up to him because he was the elder.  Was it fair to his brave mother for him to go, too—­was it right?

“Yes mother,” he said, soberly.

III

The Legion came next morning and pitched camp in a woodland of oak and sugar trees, where was to be voiced a patriotic welcome by a great editor, a great orator, and young Crittenden.

Before noon, company streets were laid out and lined with tents and, when the first buggies and rockaways began to roll in from the country, every boy-soldier was brushed and burnished to defy the stare of inspection and to quite dazzle the eye of masculine envy or feminine admiration.

In the centre of the woodland was a big auditorium, where the speaking was to take place.  After the orators were done, there was to be a regimental review in the bluegrass pasture in front of historic Ashland.  It was at the Colonel’s tent, where Crittenden went to pay his respects, that he found Judith Page, and he stopped for a moment under an oak, taking in the gay party of women and officers who sat and stood about the entrance.  In the centre of the group stood a lieutenant in the blue of a regular and with the crossed sabres of the cavalryman on his neck-band and the number of his regiment.  The girl was talking to the gallant old Colonel with her back to Crittenden, but he would have known her had he seen but an arm, a shoulder, the poise of her head, a single gesture—­although he had not seen her for years.  The figure was the same—­a little fuller, perhaps, but graceful, round, and slender, as was the throat.  The hair was a trifle darker, he thought, but brown still, and as rich with gold as autumn sunlight.  The profile was in outline now—­it was more cleanly cut than ever.  The face was a little older, but still remarkably girlish in spite of its maturer strength; and as she turned to answer his look, he kept on unconsciously reaffirming to his memory the broad brow and deep clear eyes, even while his hand was reaching for the brim of his hat.  She showed only gracious surprise at seeing him and, to his wonder, he was as calm and cool as though he were welcoming back home any good friend who had been away a long time.  He could now see that the lieutenant belonged to the Tenth United States Cavalry; he knew that the Tenth was a colored regiment; he understood a certain stiffness that he felt rather than saw in the courtesy that was so carefully shown him by the Southern volunteers who were about him; and he turned away to avoid meeting