ntents on the floor, selecting what suited their fancy. Every rag of
the boys' clothes, the old Colonel's and Senator Barton's were tied in
bundles.

They entered Jennie's room, broke every mirror, tore down the rods from
the bed and ripped the net into shreds. The desk was split, letters
turned out and scattered over the floor. A light sewing machine was sent
below for a souvenir. The heavy one was broken with an ax.

From Jennie's bureau they tore a pink flowered muslin, stuck it on a
bayonet and paraded the room, the officers striking it with their swords
shouting their dull insults:

"I've struck the damned secesh!"

"The proud little hellion!"

"That's the time I cut her!"

One seized her bonnet, put it on, tied the ribbon under his chin and
amid the shouts of his half-drunken companions, paraded the house, and
wore it into the streets when he left.

When the noise had died away and the house was still at last, Jennie
came forth from the little room in which she had taken refuge, leading
her grandmother. Hand in hand they viewed the wreck.

The thing that hurt the girl most of all was the ruin of her desk--her
letters from Dick Welford, the boys, her father and mother, the diary
she had kept with the intimate secrets of her young heart--all had been
opened, thumbed and thrown over the floor. The little perfumed notes she
had received from her first beaux--invitations to buggy rides, concerts,
and parties, and all of them beginning, "Compliments of"--had been
profaned by dirty greasy fingers. Some were torn into little bits and
scattered over the room, others were ground into the floor by hobnails
in heavy boot heels.

Her last letter from Socola was stolen--to be turned over to the
commander for inspection no doubt. And then she broke into a foolish
laugh. The strain was over. What did it matter--this clutter of goods
and chattels on the floor--she was young--it was the morning of life and
she had met her fate!

In a sudden rush of emotion she threw her arms around her grandmother's
neck and cried:

"Thank the good Lord, grandma, they didn't shoot you!"

The sweet old lady was strangely quiet, and her eyes had a queer set
look. She bore the strain without a break until they entered the wreck
of the stately parlor. She saw the slashed portrait of the Colonel lying
on the floor and sank in a heap beside it without a word or sound.

Jennie succeeded at last in obtaining a pass to New Orleans, consignin