was walking on Pennsylvania
avenue, when the setting sun shone in my face, and a man in uniform
stopped me, saying:

"Excuse me! you do not know me, but I know you!"

I turned, looked at him carefully, and said:

"I do not know you!"

"Oh, no! but the last time you saw me, you cut off my beard with your
scissors and fed me with a teaspoon. When you left me you did not think
you would ever see me again."

"Oh!" I exclaimed joyfully, "you are Dutton."

He laughed, and replied, "That's me. I have just got a furlough and am
going home."

He was very pale and thin, but I was so glad to see him and shake hands,
and wish him safely home with his friends.

During the great review after the war, I had a seat near the President's
stand. There was a jam, and a man behind me called my attention to a
captain, at a short distance, who had something to say to me, and passed
along the words:

"You took care of me on the boat coming from Fredericksburg."

Looking across, I could see him quite well, but even when his hat was
off could not recognize him; and this is all I have ever heard from or
of the men with whose lives mine was so knit during that terrible time.

I fear that not many survived, and doubt if a dozen of them ever knew me
by any other name than that of "Mother."

CHAPTER LXXX.

AM ENLIGHTENED.

When Early appeared before Washington, we all knew there was nothing to
prevent his coming in and taking possession. The forts were stripped.
There were no soldiers either in or around the city. The original
inhabitants were ready to welcome him with open arms. The departments
were closed, that the clerks might go out in military array, to oppose;
but of course few soldiers were sitting at desks at that stage of the
war. The news at the Quartermaster's office one morning was that the
foreign ministers had been notified, and that the city would be shelled
that afternoon. We lived on the north side of the city; and when I went
home, thousands of people were on the streets, listening to the sound of
guns at Fort Reno.

So far as I knew, there was a universal expectation that the city would
be occupied by rebel troops that night. As this was in harmony with the
general tenor of my anticipations for a quarter of a century, I readily
shared in the popular opinion, and for once was with the majority.

Among the groups who stood in the streets were many contrabands, and
their faces were pitiful to see. One scant