captain will dismount and ascend to the balcony, and there he and the
young lady, whoever she is--" He waits, hoping Madame will say who the
young lady is, but Madame only smiles for him to proceed--"The captain
and she will confront each other, she will present the colors, he,
replying, will receive them, and--ah, after all!" The thing had been
done without their seeing it, and there stood the whole magnificent
double line. Captain Kincaid dismounted and had just turned from his
horse when there galloped up Royal Street from the vanished
procession--Mandeville. Slipping and clattering, he reined up and
saluted: "How soon can Kincaid's Battery be completely ready to go into
camp?"

"Now, if necessary."

"It will receive orders to move at seven to-morrow morning!" The
Creole's fervor amuses the rabble, and when Hilary smiles his
earnestness waxes to a frown. Kincaid replies lightly and the rider
bends the rein to wheel away, but the slippery stones have their victim
at last. The horse's feet spread and scrabble, his haunches go low.
Constance snatches both Anna's hands. Ah! by good luck the beast is up
again! Yet again the hoofs slip, the rider reels, and Charlie and a
comrade dart out to catch him, but he recovers. Then the horse makes
another plunge and goes clear down with a slam and a slide that hurl his
master to the very sidewalk and make a hundred pale women cry out.

Constance and her two companions bend wildly from the balustrade, a
sight for a painter. Across the way Flora, holding back her grandmother,
silently leans out, another picture. In the ranks near Charlie a
disarray continues even after Kincaid has got the battered Mandeville
again into the saddle, and while Mandeville is rejecting sympathy with a