you and I and the others will enter the house. Break in the lock with
the butt of your rifle, sergeant! No, I see it's not locked!"

He turned the bolt, and, the door swinging in, they passed into an empty
hall. Here they paused and listened, which was a wise thing for a man to
do when he entered the house of an enemy. Dick's sense of hearing was
not much inferior to that of the sergeant, and while at first they heard
nothing, they detected presently a faint click, click. He could not
imagine what made the odd sound, and, listening as hard as he could,
he could detect no other with it.

He pushed open a door that led into the hall and he and his men entered
a large room with windows on the side, opening upon a rose garden. It
was a pleasant room with a high ceiling, and old-fashioned, dignified
furniture. A blaze of sunlight poured in from the windows, and, where a
sash was raised, came the faint, thrilling perfume of roses, a perfume
to which Dick was peculiarly susceptible. Yet, for years afterward, the
odor of roses brought back to him that house and that room.

He thought at first that the room, although the faint clicking noise
continued, contained no human being. But presently he saw sitting at a
table by the open window a woman whose gray dress and gray hair blended
so nearly with the gray colors of the chamber that even a soldier could
have been excused for not seeing her at once. Her head and body were
perfectly still, but her hands were moving rapidly. She was knitting,
and it was the click of her needles that they had heard.

She did not look up as Dick entered, and, taking off his cap, he stood,
somewhat abashed. He knew at once by her dress and face, and the dignity,
disclosed even by the manner in which she sat, that she was a great lady,