Hulmar, who was somewhat of an antiquarian, wished to avail himself of my knowledge in regard to the position of the forts. Uespa was still the seat of a great school of civil engineering; but, of course, every vestige, and almost the remembrance, of its former warlike purposes. had disappeared. Hulmar was pleased to find that my recollections coincided, upon the whole, with his laboriously drawn inferences.
While he left us to make a short call on a professor, Reva and I awaited his return on a spot where the beauty of the view has probably in all ages caused a seat to be placed. Things being viewed from a distance, the prospect up the river towards Newburg, and that city itself, seemed almost unaltered.
Our talk was of many things. We talked of the cadets and their ways, in regard to whom Reva found much to inquire. Next the talk drifted to the many brave men to whom this scene had once been familiar, whose last view of earth had been amid the thunder and tumult of battle. Then Reva begged once more to hear that account of the departure of my uncle Thaddeus at the head of his regiment. She seemed most affected by that final scene of the women falling weeping into each other's arms. She sat silent for a while, looking at the ground before her, then murmured, as if speaking to herself,—
"It was indeed hard to bear. She must have loved him dearly."
My heart leaped wildly at this first, apparently unconscious, utterance by her lips of the word love. Was she beginning to feel that love is something more than friendship? At this moment Hulmar returned; and soon we were on our way to Neuba, as the city was then called.
