ght; they thought the field as much harder
as it was more glorious. Nothing was too good for their soldier; they
would have starved a week to have given him the white bread, the loaf
sugar, and the Mocha.

Supper over, he went down to the house quarter to speak to the men and
women there; then, in the parlour, at the piano, he played with his
masterly touch "The Last Waltz," and then he came to the fire, took his
grandfather's chair, and described to the women the battle at sea.

"We were encamped on the Warwick River--infantry, and a cavalry company,
and a battalion from New Orleans. Around us were green flats, black mud,
winding creeks, waterfowl, earthworks, and what guns they could give us.
At the mouth of the river, across the channel, we had sunk twenty canal
boats, to the end that Burnside should not get by. Besides the canal
boats and the guns and the waterfowl there was a deal of
fever--malarial--of exposure, of wet, of mouldy bread, of homesickness
and general desolation. Some courage existed, too, and singing at times.
We had been down there a long time among the marshes--all winter, in
fact. About two weeks ago--"

"Oh, Edward, were you very homesick?"

"Devilish. For the certain production of a very curious feeling, give me
picket duty on a wet marsh underneath the stars! Poetic
places--marshes--with a strong suggestion about them of The Last Man....
Where was I? Down to our camp one morning about two weeks ago came El
Capitan Colorado--General Magruder, you know--gold lace, stars, and
black plume! With him came Lieutenant Wood, C. S. N. We were paraded--"

"Edward, try as I may, I cannot get over the strangeness of your being
in the ranks!"

Edward laughed. "There's many a better man than I in them, Aunt Lucy!
They make the best of crows'-nests from which to spy on life, and that
is what I always wanted to do--to spy on life!--The men were paraded,
and Lieutenant Wood made us a speech. 'The old Merrimac, you know, men,
that was burnt last year when the Yankees left Norfolk?--well, we've
raised her, and cut her down to her berth deck, and made of her what we
call an iron-clad. An iron-clad is a new man-of-war that's going to take
the place of the old. The Merrimac is not a frigate any longer; she's
the iron-clad Virginia, and we rather think she's going to make her name
remembered. She's over there at the Gosport Navy Yard, and she's almost
ready. She's covered over with iron plates, and she's got an