corners, each one of them a scroll of tragic history, to one like
Montague, who understood. His eye roamed over them while the
secretary was reading minutes of meetings and other routine
announcements. Then he began to study the assemblage. There were men
with one arm and men with one leg--one tottering old soldier ninety
years of age, stone blind, and led about by his friends. The Loyal
Legion was an officers' organization, and to that extent
aristocratic; but worldly success counted for nothing in it--some of
its members were struggling to exist on their pensions, and were as
much thought of as a man like General Prentice, who was president ot
one of the city's largest banks, and a rich man, even in New York's
understanding of that term.

The presiding officer introduced "Colonel Robert gelden, who will
read the paper of the evening: 'Recollections of Spottsylvania.'"
Montague started at the name--for "Bob" Selden had been one of his
father's messmates, and had fought all through the Peninsula
Campaign at his side.

He was a tall, hawk-faced man with a grey imperial. The room was
still as he arose, and after adjusting his glasses, he began to read
his story. He recalled the situation of the Army of the Potomac in
the spring of 1846; for three years it had marched and fought,
stumbling through defeat after defeat, a mighty weapon, lacking only
a man who could wield it. Now at last the man had come--one who
would put them into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So
they had marched into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and
for three days they groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to
hand, amid suffocating smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet,
unassuming voice; but one could see that he had hold of his hearers