“If we were,” answered Virginia, “something might be accomplished.”

“Isn’t Clarence enough of a fire-eater to suit you?” asked her father.

But the tents were pitched, and at that moment the young Captain was seen to hand over his horse to an orderly, and to come toward them.  He was followed by George Catherwood.

“Come, Jinny,” cried her cousin, “let us go over to the main camp.”

“And walk on Davis Avenue,” said Virginia, flushing with pride.  “Isn’t there a Davis Avenue?”

“Yes, and a Lee Avenue, and a Beauregard Avenue,” said George, taking his sister’s arm.

“We shall walk in them all,” said Virginia.

What a scene of animation it was.  The rustling trees and the young grass of early May, and the two hundred and forty tents in lines of military precision.  Up and down the grassy streets flowed the promenade, proud fathers and mothers, and sweethearts and sisters and wives in gala dress.  Wear your bright gowns now, you devoted women.  The day is coming when you will make them over and over again, or tear them to lint, to stanch the blood of these young men who wear their new gray so well.

Every afternoon Virginia drove with her father and her aunt to Camp Jackson.  All the fashion and beauty of the city were there.  The bands played, the black coachmen flecked the backs of their shining horses, and walking in the avenues or seated under the trees were natty young gentlemen in white trousers and brass-buttoned jackets.  All was not soldier fare at the regimental messes.  Cakes and jellies and even ices and more substantial dainties were laid beneath those tents.  Dress parade was one long sigh of delight:  Better not to have been born than to have been a young man in St. Louis, early in Camp Jackson week, and not be a militiaman.

One young man whom we know, however, had little of pomp and vanity about him,—­none other than the young manager (some whispered “silent partner”) of Carvel & Company.  If Mr. Eliphalet had had political ambition, or political leanings, during the half-year which had just passed, he had not shown them.  Mr. Cluyme (no mean business man himself) had pronounced Eliphalet a conservative young gentleman who attended to his own affairs and let the mad country take care of itself.  This is precisely the wise course Mr. Hopper chose.  Seeing a regiment of Missouri Volunteers slouching down Fifth street in citizens’ clothes he had been remarked to smile cynically.  But he kept his opinions so close that he was supposed not to have any.

On Thursday of Camp Jackson week, an event occurred in Mr. Carvel’s store which excited a buzz of comment.  Mr. Hopper announced to Mr. Barbo, the book-keeper, that he should not be there after four o’clock.  To be sure, times were more than dull.  The Colonel that morning had read over some two dozen letters from Texas and the Southwest, telling of the impossibility of meeting certain obligations in the present state of the country.  The Colonel had gone home to dinner with his brow furrowed.  On the other hand, Mr. Hopper’s equanimity was spoken of at the widow’s table.