Kincaid's Battery

alted command and came into the carriage group, while from the trai

Hilary's Irby was aggrieved. All their days his cousin had been getting into his light, and this realization st

slike of a woman's battery? If intuition was worth while, this man was soon to be a captain somewhere. Here was that rare find for which even maidens' eyes were alert those days--a born leader. No ladies' man this--"of all th

above eyes whose long lashes would have made them meltingly tender had they not been so large with mirth: "A boy's eyes

een them: "Is there not going

his mind. In Mobile Flora had been easily first in any social set to which she condescended. In New Orleans, brought into the Callenders' circles by her cousin Mandeville, she had found herself quietly ranked second to Anna, and Anna now yet more pointedly outshining her through the brazen splendor of this patriotic gift of guns. For this

part with Anna. This, he murmured, was the

tery, where a growing laugh was running through the whole undisciplined command. "What is it about?" she playfully inquired, but then saw. In response to the neigh of Greenleaf's steed Hilary's had paused an instant and turned his head, but now followed on

very time I look at him!" c

To whom Anna smiled across in her belated way, and wondered

under way. Flora, at the General's side, missed nothing of them, yet her nimble eye kept her well aware that a

ed to the rear!" And Flora, seeing and applauding, saw also Anna turn

s--" Greenle

less.' There can

not at le

ther you would

sent, y

ver marry!" Her gaze rested far across the field on the quietly clad figure of Kincaid riding to and fro a

by throwing caisson' to the rear--look--

d now another, her glow heightened, and she called musically to Constance, Mrs. Callender and Anna, by turns, to behold and admire. For one telling moment she was, and felt herself, the focus of her group, the centre of its living picture. Out afield yet another manoeuvre was on, and while Anna and her suitor stood close below her helplessly becalmed eac

d went bounding over the field, caissons in front. And now pieces passed their caissons, and now they were in line, then in double column, and presently were gleaming in battery again, faced to the rear. And now at command the tired lads d

of his uncle. So Kincaid cheerfully paired with Flora. But thus both he and Anna unwittingly put the finishing touch upon that chang

aring, talents, and character, is it not strange that Flora, having conquest for her ruling passion, should strive so to relate A