the
portico were littered with autumn leaves.

Dick felt the chill settling down on him again. War, not war with
armies, but war in its results, had swept over his uncle's home as truly
as it had swept over his mother's. There was no sign of a human being.
Doubtless the colored servants had fled to the Union armies, and to the
freedom which they as yet knew so little how to use. He felt a sudden
access of anger against them, because they had deserted a master so kind
and just, forgetting, for the moment that he was fighting to free them
from that very master.

All the windows were dark, but he walked upon the portico and the dry
autumn leaves rustled under his feet. He would have turned away, but
he noticed that the front door stood ajar six or eight inches. The fact
amazed him. If a servant was about, he would not leave it open, and if
robbers were in the house, they would close it in order not to attract
attention. It was a great door of massive and magnificent oak, highly
polished, with heavy bands of glittering bronze running across it. But
it was so lightly poised on its hinges, that, despite its great weight,
a child could have swung it back and forth with his little finger.
Henry Ware, who built the house after his term as governor was over, was
always proud of this door.

Dick ran his hand along one of the polished bronze bars as he had often
done when he was a boy, enjoying the cool touch of the metal. Then
he put his thumb against the edge of the door, and pushed it a little
further open. Something was wrong here, and he meant to see what it was.
He had no scruples about entering. He did not consider himself in the
least an intruder. This was his uncle's house, and his uncle and his
cousin were far away.

The door made no sound as it swung back, and soundless, too, was Dick as
he stepped within. It was dark in the big hall, but as he stood there,
listening, he became conscious of a light. It proceeded from one of the
rooms opening into the hall on the right, and a door nearly closed only
allowed a narrow band of it to fall upon the hall floor.

Dick, believing now that a robber had indeed come, drew a pistol from
his pocket, stepped lightly across the hall and looked in at the door.

He checked a cry, and it was his first thought to go away as quietly as
he had come. He had seen a man in the uniform of a Confederate colonel,
sitting in a chair, and staring out at one of the little side windows
which Di