account for his words. At present, my sword is pledged to the king and may be drawn in no other service, more especially not in my own. I trust, Lieutenant Stewart, you will have the courage to sheathe your blade."

I hesitated. It was a hard thing to ask a man to do.

"Yes, put up your sword!" cried Allen scornfully. "Allow yourself to be reproved like a naughty boy by this hero who knows only how to retreat. On my soul, 't was well he arrived when he did. I should have finished with you long ere this."

Washington looked at me steadily, without showing by the movement of a muscle that he had heard.

"And I promise you, Lieutenant Stewart," he continued, as though there had been no interruption, "that I shall be happy to act as your second, once this campaign is closed."

My cheeks flushed again, this time with pleasure, and I picked up my scabbard and sent my blade home.

"I must beg you to excuse me, Lieutenant Allen," I said. "Colonel
Washington says right. My sword is not my own until we have met the
French. Then I shall be only too pleased to conclude the argument."

Allen's lips curved in a disdainful smile.

"I thought you would be somewhat less eager to vindicate the courage of Virginia once you had pause for reflection," he sneered. "Provincials are all of a kind, and the breed is not a choice one."

I bit my lips to keep back the angry retort which leaped to them, and I saw Washington's hand trembling on his sword. It did me good to see that even he maintained his calmness only by an effort.

"Oh, come, Allen," cried Pennington, "you go too far. There can be no question of Lieutenant Stewart's courage. He was ready enough to meet you, God knows! Colonel Washington is right, our swords belong to the king while he has work for them," and the young fellow, with flushed face, held out his hand to Washington, who grasped it warmly.

"I thank you," he said simply. "I should be sorry to believe that all the king's officers could so far forget their duty. Come, lieutenant," he added to me, and taking me by the arm, he walked me out of the group, which opened before us, and I ventured to think that not all of the faces were unfriendly. "I have a message for Sir Peter Halket," he said, when we were out of earshot. "Show me his quarters, Tom, and so soon as I have finished my business, we will talk over this unhappy affair."

I led the way toward the building where the commander of the Forty-Fourth was quartered, too angry with myself and with the world to trust myself to speak. Why should I, who came of as good family as any in Virginia, be compelled to swallow insults as I had to-night? I almost regretted for the moment that I was in the service.

"But the time will come," I said, speaking aloud before I thought.

"Yes, the time will come, Tom," and Washington looked at me with a grim smile. "The time will come sooner than you think, perhaps, when these braggarts will be taught a lesson which they greatly need. Pray heaven the lesson be not so severe that it shake the king's empire on this continent."

"Shake the king's empire?" I repeated, looking at him in amazement. "I do not understand."

"No matter," he said shortly. "Here we are at headquarters. Do you wait for me. I will be but a moment;" and he ran up the steps, spoke a word to the sentry, and disappeared within.

CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF FONTENOY

My heart was thick with wrath as I walked up and down before Sir Peter Halket's quarters and waited for Colonel Washington to reappear. I asked myself again why I should be compelled to take the insults of any man. I clenched my hands together behind me, and swore that Allen should yet pay dearly. I recalled with bitterness the joy I had felt a week before, when I had received from Colonel Washington a letter in which he stated that he had procured my appointment as lieutenant in Captain Waggoner's Virginia company. I had been ahungered to make the campaign, and had donned my uniform with a light heart,—the same I had worn the year before, now much faded but inexpressibly dear to me,—mounted my horse, and ridden hotfoot to join the force here at Winchester. I had been received kindly enough by my companion officers of the provincial companies, many of whom were old friends. The contempt which the officers of the Forty-Fourth felt for the Virginia troops, and which they were at no pains to conceal, had vexed me somewhat from the first, yet it was not until to-night at the officers' mess, to which I had foolishly accepted Pennington's invitation, that this contempt had grown unbearable. I had chanced to pull Pennington's horse out of a hole the day before, and so saved it a broken leg, but I saw now that I should have done better to refuse that invitation, courteously as it was given, and sincere as his gratitude had undoubtedly been.

So I walked up and down with a sore heart, as a child will when it has been punished for no fault, and prayed that we provincials might yet teach the regulars a lesson. Yet they were brave men, most of them, whom I could not but admire. A kindlier, gallanter roan than Sir Peter Halket I had never seen, no, nor ever shall see. I noted the sentries pacing their beats before the colonel's quarters, erect, automatons, their guns a-glitter in the moonlight, their uniforms immaculate. I had seen them drill the day before, whole companies moving like one man, their ranks straight as a ramrod,—tramp, tramp,—turning as on a pivot moved by a single will. It was a wonderful sight to me who had never seen the like before, they were so strong, so confident, so seemingly invincible.

I turned and glanced again at the sentries, almost envying them their perfect carriage. Had they been men of iron, worked by a spring, they could not have moved with more clock-like regularity. And yet, no doubt, they had one time been country louts like any others. Truly there was much virtue in discipline. Yet still, and here I shook my head, the Virginia troops were brave as any in the world, and would prove it. From the officers' quarters came the sound of singing and much laughter, and I flushed as I thought perchance it was at me they laughed. I have learned long since that no man's laughter need disturb rue, so my heart be clear, but this was wisdom far beyond my years and yet undreamed of, and I shook my fist at the row of lighted windows.

"What, still fuming, Tom?" cried a voice at my elbow, and I turned to find Colonel Washington there; "and staring over toward the barracks as though you would like to gobble up every one within! Well, I admit you have cause," he added, and I saw that his face grew stern. "You may have to bear many such insults before the campaign is ended, but I hope and believe that the conduct of the Virginia troops will yet win them the respect of the regulars. You seem to have lost no time in getting to camp," he added, in a lighter tone.

"There was nothing to keep me at Riverview," I answered bitterly. "My absence is much preferred to my presence there. Had I not come to Winchester, I must have gone somewhere else. Your letter came most opportunely."

"You are out of humor to-night, Tom," said Washington, but his tone was kindly, and he placed one hand upon my arm as we turned back toward the cabin where my quarters were. He was scarce three years my senior, yet to me he seemed immeasurably the elder. I had always thought of him as of a man, and I verily believe he was a man in mind and temper while yet a boy in body. I had ridden beside him many times over his mother's estate, and I had noticed—and chafed somewhat at the knowledge—that women much older