main body with a small scout the night before, and now was up and dressed in his best, spick and span and gay, fairly shining in the sunlight as he stood leaning against a log prop, talking with these ladies where they were seated on one of the rustic settles lately made by Alden’s men.

Venturing nearer, I found that I knew all of the ladies, for one was the handsome wife of Captain Bleecker, of the 3rd New York, and another proved to be Angelina Lansing, wife of Gerrit Lansing, Ensign in the same regiment.

The third lady was a complete surprise to me, she being that pretty and vivacious Magdalene Helmer — called Lana — the confidante of Clarissa Putnam — a bright-eyed, laughing beauty from Tribes Hill, whom I had known very well at Guy Park, where she often