es
you sence de day I dressed ole Miss in 'er weddin' veil."

"You're right," exclaimed Jack, heartily. "But look at this, Virginia,
here's a regular corn field at the back. Mrs. Minor tells me that
vegetables have grown so scarce she has been obliged to turn her flower
beds into garden patches." He threw open the window, and they went out upon
the wide piazza which hung above the young corn rows.

During the next few weeks, when Jack was often in the city, an almost
feverish gayety possessed the girl. In the war-time parties, where the
women wore last year's dresses, and the wit served for refreshment, her
gentle beauty became, for a little while, the fashion. The smooth bands of
her hair were copied, the curve of her eyelashes was made the subject of
some verses which _The Examiner_ printed and the English papers quoted
later on. It was a bright and stately society that filled the capital that
year; and on pleasant Sundays when Virginia walked from church, in her
Leghorn bonnet and white ruffles flaring over crinoline as they neared the
ground, men, who had bled on fields of honour for the famous beauties of
the South, would drop their talk to follow her with warming eyes. Cities
might fall and battles might be lost and won, but their joy in a beautiful
woman would endure until a great age.

At last Jack Morson rode away to service, and the girl kept to the quiet
house and worked on the little garments which the child would need in the
summer. She was much alone, but the delicate widow, who had left her couch
to care for the sick and wounded soldiers, would sometimes come and sit
near her while she sewed.

"This is the happiest time--before the child comes," she said one day, and
added, with the observant eye of mothers, "it will be a boy; there is a
pink lining to the basket."

"Yes, it will be a boy," replied Virginia, wistfully.

"I have had six," pursued the woman, "six sons, and yet I am alone now.
Three are dead, and three are in the army. I am always listening for the
summons that means another grave." She clasped her thin hands and smiled
the patient smile that chilled Virginia's blood.

"Couldn't you have kept one back?" asked the girl in a whisper.

The woman shook her head. Much brooding had darkened her mind, but there
was a peculiar fervour in her face--an inward light that shone through her
faded eyes.

"Not one--not one," she answered. "When the South called, I sent the first
two, and when th