y were
perfectly still, but her hands were moving rapidly. She was knitting,
and it was the click of her needles that they had heard.

She did not look up as Dick entered, and, taking off his cap, he stood,
somewhat abashed. He knew at once by her dress and face, and the dignity,
disclosed even by the manner in which she sat, that she was a great lady,
one of those great ladies of old Virginia who were great ladies in fact.
She was rather small, Martha Washington might have looked much like her,
and she knitted steadily on, without showing by the least sign that she
was aware of the presence of Union soldiers.

A long and embarrassed silence followed. Dick judged that she was about
sixty-five years of age, though she seemed strong and he felt that she
was watching them alertly from covert eyes. There was no indication that
anyone else was in the building, but it did not seem likely that
a great lady of Virginia would be left alone in her house, with
a Union force marching by.

He approached, bowed and said:

"Madame!"

She raised her head and looked at him slowly from head to foot, and then
back again. They were fierce old eyes, and Dick felt as if they burned
him, but he held his ground knowing that he must. Then she turned back
to her knitting, and the needles clicked steadily as before.

"Madame!" repeated Dick, still embarrassed.

She lifted the fierce old eyes.

"I should think," she said, "that the business of General Grant's
soldiers was to fight those of General Lee rather than to annoy lone
women."

Dick flushed, but angry blood leaped in his veins.

"Pardon me, madame," he said, "but we have not come here to annoy a
woman. We were fired upon from this house. The man who did it has had
no opportunity to escape, and I'm sure that he's still concealed within
these walls."

"Seek and ye shall--not find," she half quoted.

"I must search the house."

"Proceed."

"First question her," the sergeant whispered in the young lieutenant's
ear.

Dick nodded.

"Pardon me, madame," he said, "but I must obtain information from you.
This is war, you know."

"I have had many rude reminders that it is so."

"Where is your husband?"

She pointed upward.

"Forgive me," said Dick impulsively. "I did not intend to recall a
grief."

"Don't worry. You and your comrades will never intrude upon him there."

"Perhaps you have sons here in this house?"

"I have three, but they are not here."

"