"Word for word, sir."

"Repeat it to me."

He held the paper before him as I did so, and at the close lifted his
eyes again to my face.

"Very good," he said quietly. "Now let there be no mistake; repeat it
over to your companion as you proceed until he also has memorized it,
and one of you must live long enough to reach Longstreet. I advise you
to take the Langley road,--it is the most protected,--and not try to
pass beyond the old Coulter plantation until after dark, or you will
run the risk of being observed by the enemy's pickets. Beyond this I
must leave all to your own discretion."

He paused, and I still lingered, thinking he might have something more
to add.

"Are you one of the Waynes of Charlottesville?" he asked gravely.

"Colonel Richard Wayne was my father, sir."

"Ah, indeed! I remember him well"; and his face lit up with a most
tender smile. "We were together in Mexico. A Virginia gentleman of the
old school. He is dead, I believe?"

"He was killed, sir, the first year of the war."

"I remember; it was at Antietam. And your mother? If my memory is not