nn will send flowers. Poor boy! he has lingered
long."

"And he did so want to go back to the army. You see, he was that weak he
cried. He was in the colour-guard and asked to have the flag hung on the
wall. Any news of our John? I dreamed about him last night, only he had
long curly locks--like he used to have."

"No, not a word."

"Has Mr. Rivers got back?"

"No, he is still with the army. You know, aunt sends him with money for
the Sanitary."

"Yes, the Sanitary Commission--we all know."

Leila turned homeward seeing the curly locks. "Oh, to be a man now!" she
murmured. She was bearing the woman's burden.

Mrs. Crocker called after her, "You forgot the papers."

"Burn them," said Leila. "I have heard enough--and more than enough, and
Aunt Ann never reads them."

Penhallow had found time to visit his home twice in the winter, but found
there little to please him. His wife was obviously feeling the varied
strain of war, and Leila showed plainly that she too was suffering. He
returned to his work unhappy, a discontented and resolutely dutiful man,
hard driven by a relentless superior. Now, at last, the relief of action
had come.

No one who has not lived through those years of war can imagine the
variety of suffering which darkened countless homes throughout the
land. At Grey Pine, Ann Penhallow living in a neighbourhood which was
hostile to her own political creed was deeply distressed by the fact
that on both sides were men dear to her. It must have been a too common
addition to the misery of war and was not in some cases without
passionate resentment. There were Northern men in the service of the
Confederacy, and of the Southern graduates from West Point nearly fifty
per cent, had remained loyal to the flag, as they elected to understand
loyalty. The student of human motives may well be puzzled, for example,
to explain why two of the most eminent soldiers of the war, both being
men of the highest character and both Virginians should have decided to
take different sides.

Some such reflection occupied Leila Grey's mind as she rode away. Many
of the officers now in one of the two armies had dined or stayed a few
pleasant days at Grey Pine. For one of them, Robert Lee, Penhallow had
a warm regard. She remembered too General Scott, a Virginian, and her
aunt's Southern friend Drayton, the man whom a poet has since described
when with Farragut as "courtly, gallant and wise." "Ah, me!" she
murmured, "duty mus