n't care if she's a rebel
minx."

"Celia! . . . And I--I didn't think you liked that word."

"What word, Honey-bell?" very demurely.

"Rebel!"

"Why, I reckon George Washington wore that title without reproach.
It's a ve'y good title--rebel," she added serenely. "I admire it
enough to wear it myse'f."

Quarters were found for Mrs. Craig. Letty shyly offered to move,
but Celia wouldn't have it.

"My dear child," she said, "I'm just a useless encumbrance 'round
the house; give me a corner where I may sit and look on and--he'p
everybody by not inte'fering."

Her corner was an adjoining section of the garret, boarded up,
wall-papered, and furnished for those who visited the Farm Hospital
on tour of inspection or to see some sick friend or relative, or
escort some haggard convalescent to the Northern home.

Celia had brought a whole trunkful of fresh gingham clothes and
aprons, and Ailsa could not discover exactly why, until, on the day
following her arrival, she found Celia sitting beside the cot of a
wounded Louisiana Tiger, administering lemonade.

"Dearest," whispered Ailsa that night, "it is very sweet of you to
care for your own people here. We make no distinction, however,
between Union and Confederate sick; so, dear, you must be very
careful not to express any--sentiments."

Celia laughed. "I won't express any sentiments, Honey-bee. I
reckon I'd be drummed out of the Yankee army." Then, graver: "If
I'm bitter--I'll keep it to myse'f."

"I know, dear. . . . And--your sympathies would never lead
you--permit you to any--indiscretion."

"You mean in talking--ahem!--treason--to sick Confederates? I
don't have to, dear."

"And. . . you must never mention anything concerning what you see
inside our lines. You understand that, of course, don't you,
darling?"

"I hadn't thought about it," said Celia musingly.

Ailsa added vaguely: "There's always a government detective hanging
around the hospital."

Celia nodded and gazed out of the open window. Very far away the
purple top of a hill peeped above the forest. Ailsa had told her
that a Confederate battery was there. And now she looked at it in
silence, her blue eyes very soft, her lips resting upon one another
in tender, troubled curves.

Somewhere on that hazy hill-top a new flag was flying; soldiers of
a new nation were guarding it, unseen by her. It was the first
outpost of her own people that she had ever seen; and she looked at
it w