“She may be somewhere out yonder, at this very moment, Steve.”  He made a vague gesture toward the west, stood looking for a while, then turned and walked slowly on with head lowered.

“I wish my mother and Ailsa were back in New York,” said the boy fretfully.  “I don’t see why the whole family should get into hot water at the same time.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me very much if Ailsa’s ambulance landed beside your mother’s door at Paigecourt,” said Berkley.  “The head-quarters of the 5th Corps cannot be very far from Paigecourt.”  At the cavalry lines he offered his hand to Stephen in farewell.

“Good-bye,” said the boy.  “I wish you the luck of the 6th Lancers.  Since Hanover Court-House nobody calls ’em ’fresh fish’—­just because they charged a few Johnnies with the lance and took a few prisoners and lost thirty horses.”

Berkley laughed.  “Thanks; and I wish you the luck of the 5th Zouaves.  They’re into everything, I hear, particularly hen-coops and pigpens.  Casson says they live high in the 5th Zouaves. . .  Good-bye, old fellow . . . will you remember me to your father?”

“I will when he lets me talk to him,” grinned Stephen.  “We’re a disciplined regiment—­I found that out right away—­and there’s nothing soft for me to expect just because my father is colonel and Josiah Lent happens to be major.”

The regimental bands played the next day; the distant cannonade had ceased; sunshine fell from a cloudless sky, and the army watched a military balloon, the “Intrepid,” high glistening above the river, its cables trailing in gracious curves earthward.

Porter’s 5th Corps now formed the rear-guard of the army; entire regiments went on picket, even the two regiments of Lancers took their turn, though not armed for that duty.  During the day there had been some unusually brisk firing along the river, near enough to cause regiments that had never been under fire to prick up a thousand pairs of ears and listen.  As the day lengthened toward evening, picket firing became incessant, and the occasional solid report of a cannon from the shore opposite disclosed the presence of Confederate batteries, the nearness of which surprised many an untried soldier.

Toward sundown Berkley saw a business-like cavalry officer ride into camp with an escort of the 5th Regulars.  Men around him said that the officer was General Philip St. George Cooke, and that the chances were that the regiments of the reserve were going into action pretty soon.

About 3 o’clock the next morning boots and saddles sounded from the head-quarters of the Cavalry Reserve brigade and the 5th and 6th United States Cavalry, followed by Colonel Rush’s Lancers, rode out of their camp grounds and were presently followed by the 1st United States and a squadron of Pennsylvania carbineers.

The troopers of the 8th Lancers watched them ride away in the dawn; but mo orders came to follow them, and, discontented, muttering, they went sullenly about their duties, wondering why they, also, had not been called on.