and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, or
watched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the James
around its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distant
battlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamber
of death. All windows were open wide to the air, most houses lighted.
Sometimes from these there came forth a sharp cry; sometimes womens'
forms, restless in the night, searching again the hospitals. "He might
be here."--"He might be at this one." Sometimes, before such or such a
house, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, God! wounded or--?" All
night long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to the
hospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's--try the
De Sales."--"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. The
beds gave out long ago. Take him to Miss Sally Tompkins."--"No room. Oh,
the pity of it! Take him to the St. Charles or into the first private
house. They are all thrown open."

Judith, kept at the Stonewall all the night before, had gone home,
bathed, drawn the shutters of her small room, lain down and resolutely
closed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew,--must gather strength for the
afternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son had
been brought in wounded. The mother, her cousin, had him in her chamber;
she and his mammy and the old family doctor. His sister, a young wife,
was possessed by the idea that her husband might be in one of the
hospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling upon
her, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, upon
her search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which had
been in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemed
as silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed her
eyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herself
out of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which she
loved, and there wooed sleep. It came at last, with a not unhappy dream.
She thought she was walking on the hills back of Greenwood with her Aunt
Lucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered the
graveyard and sat down upon the bank of ivy beside Ludwell Cary's grave.
That was all natural enough; a thing they had done many times. They were
taught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Shells lay
about them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent