Early in October the union Cavalry began their favourite pastime of "chasing" Stuart. General Pleasanton with a small force and a horse battery began it, marching seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours; but Stuart marched ninety in the same time. He had to.

About ten o\'clock in the morning of October tenth, General Buford, chief of cavalry, set the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers galloping after Stuart. Part of the 1st Maine Cavalry joined the chase; but Stuart flourished his heels and cantered gaily into Pennsylvania to the amazement and horror of that great State, and to the unbounded mortification of the union army. He had with him the 1st, 3d, 4th, 5th and 9th Virginia Cavalry; the 7th and 9th North Carolina, and two Legions; and after him went pelting the handful that McClellan could mount. A few tired troopers galloped up to Whitens Ford just as Stuart crossed in safety; and the gain of "chasing" Stuart was over. Never had the efficiency of the union Cavalry been at such a low ebb; but it was low-water mark, indeed, and matters were destined to mend after a history of nearly two years of neglect, disorganisation, and misuse.

Bayard took over the cavalry south of Washington; Pleasanton collected the 6th Regulars, the 3d Indiana, the 8th New York, the 8th Pennsylvania, and the 8th Illinois, and started in to do mischief with brigade head-quarters in the saddle.

The 8th New York went with him, but the 8th New York Lancers, reorganising at Orange Hill, were ordered to recruit the depleted regiment to twelve companies.

In August, Berkley\'s ragged blue and yellow jacket had been gaily embellished with brand-new sergeant\'s chevrons; at the Stone Bridge where the infantry recoiled his troop passed over at a gallop.

The War Department, much edified, looked at the cavalry and began to like it. And it was ordered that every cavalry regiment be increased by two troops, L and M. Which liberality, in combination with Colonel Arran\'s early reports concerning Berkley\'s conduct, enabled the company tailor to sew a pair of lieutenant\'s shoulder-straps on Berkley\'s soiled jacket.

But there was more than that in store for him; it was all very well to authorise two new troops to a regiment, but another matter to recruit them.

Colonel Arran, from his convalescent couch in the North, wrote to
Governor Morgan; and Berkley got his troop, and his orders to go to
New York and recruit it. And by the same mail came the first
letter Ailsa had been well enough to write him since her transfer
North on the transport Long Branch.

He read it a great many times; it was his only diversion while awaiting transportation at the old Hygeia Hotel, where, in company with hundreds of furloughed officers, he slept on the floors in his blanket; he read it on deck, as the paddle-wheeled transport weighed anchor, swung churning under the guns of the great Fortress—so close that the artillerymen on the water-battery could have tossed a biscuit aboard—and, heading north-east, passed out between the capes, where, seaward, the towering black sides of a sloop of war rose, bright work aglitter, smoke blowing fitfully from her single funnel.

At Alexandria he telegraphed her: "Your letter received, I am on my way North," and signed it with a thrill of boyish pride: "Philip O. Berkley-Arran, Capt. Cavalry, U. S. V."

To his father he sent a similar telegram from the Willard in Washington; wasted two days at the State, War, and Navy for an audience with Mr. Stanton, and finally found himself, valise in hand, waiting among throngs of officers of all grades, all arms of the service, for a chance to board his train.

And, as he stood there, he felt cotton-gloved fingers fumbling for the handle of his valise, and wheeled sharply, and began to laugh.

"Where the devil did you come from, Burgess? Did they give you a furlough?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Well, you got more than I. What\'s the matter; do you want to carry my bag?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don\'t have to."

"No, Captain. . . . If you don\'t object, sir, I\'ll carry it."

They found seats together; Philip, amused, tried to extract from Burgess something besides the trite and obvious servant\'s patter—something that might signify some possibility of a latent independence—the germ of aspiration. And extracted nothing. Burgess had not changed, had not developed. His ways were Philip\'s ways; his loftier flights mounted no higher toward infinity than the fashions prevailing in the year 1862, and their suitability to his master\'s ultimate requirements.

For his regiment, for its welfare, its hopes, its glory, he apparently cared nothing; nor did he appear to consider the part he had borne in its fluctuating fortunes anything to be proud of.

Penned with the others in the brush field, he had done stolidly what his superiors demanded of him; and it presently came out that the only anxiety that assailed him was when, in the smoke of the tangled thickets, he missed his late master.

"Well, what do you propose to do after the regiment is mustered out?" inquired Philip curiously.

"Wait on you, sir."

"Don\'t you want to do anything else?"

"No, sir."\'

Philip looked at him, smiling.

"I suppose you like my cigars, and my brandy and my linen?"

The ghost of .a grin touched the man\'s features.

"Yes, sir," he said with an impudence that captivated Philip.

"All right, my friend; I can stand it as long as you can. . . . And kindly feel in my overcoat for a cigar wrapped in paper. I\'ll go forward and smoke for a while."

"Sir?"

"The cigar—I put it in my overcoat pocket wrapped in a bit of paper. . . . You—you don\'t mean to tell me that it\'s not there!"

Burgess searched the pockets with a perfectly grave face.

"It ain\'t here; no, sir."

Philip flung himself into the corner of his seat, making no effort to control his laughter:

"Burgess," he managed to say, "the dear old days are returning already. I\'ll stay here and read; you go forward and smoke that cigar. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

Again, just as he had done every day since leaving camp, he reread Ailsa\'s letter, settling down in his corner by the dirty, rattling window-pane:

"Everybody writes to you except myself. I know they have told you that it is taking a little longer for me to get well than anybody expected. I was terribly tired. Your father has been so sweet; everybody has been good to me—Celia, poor little Camilla, and Stephen. I know that they all write to you; and somehow I have been listlessly contented to let them tell you about home matters, and wait until my strength returned. But you must not doubt where every waking memory of mine has centred; my thoughts have circled always around that central vortex from which, since I first laid eyes on you, they have never strayed.

"Home news is what all good soldiers want; I write for you all I know:

"The city is the same hot, noisy, dirty, dusty, muddy, gridiron, changed in nowise except that everywhere one sees invalid soldiers; and there are far too many officers lounging about, presumably on furlough—too many Captain Dash\'s, twirling black moustaches in front of fashionable hotels. There are no powder stains on their uniforms, no sun-burn on their cheeks. They throng the city; and it is a sinister phenomenon.

"I think Broadway was never as lively, never quite as licentious. Those vivid cafes, saloons, concert halls, have sprung up everywhere; theatres, museums, gardens are in full blast; shops are crowded, hotels, street cars, stages overflowing with careless, noisy, overdressed people. The city is en fete; and somehow when I think of that Dance of Death thundering ceaselessly just south of us, it appalls me to encounter such gaiety and irresponsibility in the streets.

"Yet, after all, it may be the safety-valve of a brave people. Those whirling daily in the Dance of Death have, at least, the excite............