roken note from
Celia Craig, which caused her to hasten over to Brooklyn. She
arrived late; the streets were continually blocked by departing
troops, and the omnibus took a circuitous course to the ferry,
going by way of Fourth Avenue and the Bowery.

"Honey-bee! O Honey-bell!" whispered her sister-in-law, taking
Ailsa into her arms, "I could have behaved myse'f better if Curt
were on the side of God and Justice!--But to have to let him go
this way--to know the awful danger--to know he is going against my
own people, my own home--against God and the Right!--O Honey-bird!
Honey-bud! And the Charleston _Mercury_ says that the South is
most bitter against the Zouaves----"

"Curt! With the Zouaves!"

"Oh yes, yes, Honey-bee! The Third Regiment. And he--some wicked
old men came here yesterday and read a speech--right befo' me--here
in this ve'y room--and began to say that they wished him to be
colonel of the 3d Zouaves, and that the Governor wished it
and--other fools! And I rose straight up f'om my chair and I said,
'Curt!' And he gave me one look. Oh, Honey-bud! His face was
changed; there was _that same thing_ in it that I saw the night the
news came about Sumter! And he said: 'Gentlemen, my country
educated me; now it honours me.' And I tried to speak again and my
lips were stiff; and then he said: 'I accept the command you
offer----'"

"Oh, Celia!"

"Yes, he said it, darling! I stood there, frozen--in a corner of
my heart I had been afraid--such a long time!--but to have it come
real--'this terror!--to have this thing take my husband--come into
our own home befo' I knew--befo' I dreamed--and take Curt!--take
--my--Curt!"

"Where is he?"

"With--_them_. They have a camp near Fort Hamilton. He went there
this morning."

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't know. Stephen is scaring me most to death; he is wild to
go, too. And, oh--do you believe it? Captain Lent has gone with
Curt to the camp, and Curt means to recommend him for his major.
_What_ a regiment!--all the soldiers are mere boys, they
say--wilful, reckless, hair-brained boys who don't know--_can't_
know--where they're going. . . . And Curt is so blind without his
glasses, and Captain Lent is certainly a little mad, and I'm most
distracted myse'f----"

"Darling--darling--don't cry!"

"Cry? Oh, I could die, Ailsa. Yet, I'm Southern enough to choke
back eve'y tear and let them go with a smile if they had to go fo'
God and the R