gazing unweariedly at its windows and walls, then moving on to be
replaced by another of the like kind, which, having gone through the
same performance, gave way in turn to yet others, eager to take its
place.

So the fever burned; the excitement continued and augmented till,
towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the mighty throng stood still,
and waited. It was no ordinary multitude; the wealth, refinement,
fashion, the greatness and goodness of a vast city were there, pressed
close against its coarser and darker and homelier elements. Men and
women stood alike in the crowd, dainty patrician and toil-stained
laborer, all thrilled by a common emotion, all vivified--if in unequal
degree--by the same sublime enthusiasm. Overhead, from every window and
doorway and housetop, in every space and spot that could sustain one, on
ropes, on staffs, in human hands, waved, and curled, and floated, flags
that were in multitude like the swells of the sea; silk, and bunting,
and painted calico, from the great banner spreading its folds with an
indescribable majesty, to the tiny toy shaken in a baby hand. Under all
this glad and gay and splendid show, the faces seemed, perhaps by
contrast, not sad, but grave; not sorrowful, but intense, and luminously
solemn.

Gradually the men of the Seventh marched out of their armory. Hands had
been wrung, adieus said, last fond embraces and farewells given. The
regiment formed in the open square, the crowd about it so dense as to
seem stifling, the windows of its building rilled with the sweetest and
finest and fairest of faces,--the mothers, wives, and sweethearts of
these young splendid fellows just ready to march away.

Surrey from his station gazed and gazed at the window where stood his