y child," said the lawyer, "you're mad."

"You'll see," replied Mary, almost in soliloquy.

CHAPTER LIV.

"WHO GOES THERE?"

The scene and incident now to be described are without date. As Mary
recalled them, years afterward, they hung out against the memory a bold,
clear picture, cast upon it as the magic lantern casts its tableaux upon
the darkened canvas. She had lost the day of the month, the day of the
week, all sense of location, and the points of the compass. The most
that she knew was that she was somewhere near the meeting of the
boundaries of three States. Either she was just within the southern
bound of Tennessee, or the extreme north-eastern corner of Mississippi,
or else the north-western corner of Alabama. She was aware, too, that
she had crossed the Tennessee river; that the sun had risen on her left
and had set on her right, and that by and by this beautiful day would
fade and pass from this unknown land, and the fire-light and lamp-light
draw around them the home-groups under the roof-trees, here where she
was a homeless stranger, the same as in the home-lands where she had
once loved and been beloved.

She was seated in a small, light buggy drawn by one good horse. Beside
her the reins were held by a rather tall man, of middle age, gray, dark,
round-shouldered, and dressed in the loose blue flannel so much worn by
followers of the Federal camp. Under the stiff brim of his soft-crowned
black hat a pair of clear eyes gave a continuous playful twinkle.
Between this person and Mary protruded, at the edge of the buggy-seat,
two small bootees that have already had mention, and from his elbow to
hers, and back to his, continually swayed drowsily the little golden
head to which the bootees bore a certain close relation. The dust of the
highway was on the buggy and the blue flannel and the bootees. It showed
with special boldness on a black sun-bonnet that covered Mary's head,
and that somehow lost all its homeliness whenever it rose sufficiently
in front to show the face within. But the highway itself was not there;
it had been left behind some hours earlier. The buggy was moving at a
quiet jog along a "neighborhood road," with unploughed fields on the
right and a darkling woods pasture on the left. By the feathery softness
and paleness of the sweet-smelling foliage you might have guessed it was
not far from the middle of April, one way or another; and, by certain
allusions to Pittsburg Landing as