I was happy to know that I surprised the lady by the extent of my information, and her flushed cheeks and brightening eyes were ample reward.

The major said little, yet when he occasionally spoke it was to reveal that he was a man of unusual learning.
I shall recall the details of that meal as long as I live--the peculiar conditions, and the faces of those present.

It was all so little like war, the only suggestion of conflict the uniforms we wore, and the dull reverberation of that distant cannonading.

For the time, at least, we forgot we were upon the very verge of a battle, and that we were politically enemies.

Prisoners were in the basement beneath, guards were patrolling the hall without, yet we laughed and joked, with never a reference to the great conflict in which all present bore part.