Mordaunt's face glowed with
pleasure, and the grasp of his strong hand was like a vice. He was
unchanged, except that he wore a suit of plain gray cloth. His
statuesque head, with the long black beard and mustache, the sparkling
eyes, and cheeks tanned by exposure to the sun and wind, rose as
proudly as on that morning in 1865, when he had charged and cut through
the enemy at Appomattox.
Violet was Violet still! The beautiful tranquil face still smiled with
its calm sweetness; the lips had still that expression of infantile
innocence. The blue eyes still looked forth from the shower of golden
ringlets which had struck me when I first met her in the lonely house
in the Wilderness, in the gay month of April, 1861.
I had shaken hands with Mordaunt, but I advanced and "saluted" madam,
and the cheek was suddenly filled with exquisite roses.
"For old times' sake, madam!"
"Which are the best of all possible times, Surry!" said Mordaunt,
laughing.
And he led the way into the great apartment, hung round with portraits,
where we had supped on the night of Pelham's hard fight at Barbee's,
after Sharpsburg.
"You remember this room, do you not, my dear Surry?" said Mordaunt. "It
escaped during the war; though you see that my poor little grandmother,
the child of sixteen there, with the curls and laces, received a sabre
thrust in the neck.
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