... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't
bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt
me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the damn
Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their
hell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you
kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with
wreaths of roses?--'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it....
Evelington Heights--and Stuart dropping shells into the damn Yankees'
camp.... They _are_ roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive....
Evelington Heights. Eveling--Well, the damn Yankees dragged their guns
up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's
here--Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them
again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to--"

The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that
it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted
army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two
guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured
or destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the James
by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a
time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew
that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than
had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond.
Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all
its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the
ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of
triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking
with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs.
The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black
thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A paean sounded as well as a
dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the
heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of
processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting,
dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells
rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful
of flowers,--white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox--She gave
her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out wit