u, Ruggles, Brodnax; out on the parapets, between
the guns, had chatted with Hilary and his loved lieutenants; down among
the tents and mess-fires had given his pale hand, with Spartan
injunctions and all the home news, to George Gregory, Ned Ferry, Dick
Smith, and others of Harper's cavalry, and--circled round by Charlie
Valcour, Sam Gibbs, Maxime, and scores of their comrades in Kincaid's
Battery--had seen once more their silken flag, so faded! and touched its
sacred stains and tatters. Now at the tea table something led him to
remark that here at home the stubborn illness of this battery sister for
whom Anna was acting as treasurer had compelled him to send her away.

Timely topic: How to go into the country, and whither. The Callenders
were as eager for all the facts and counsel he could give on it as if
they were the "big generals" and his facts and counsel were as to the
creeks, swamps, ridges, tangled ravines, few small clearings, and many
roads and by-roads in the vast, thinly settled, small-farmed,
rain-drenched forests between Corinth and the clay bluffs of the
Tennessee. For now the Callenders also were to leave the city, as soon
as they could be ready.

"Don't wait till then," crisply said the Doctor.

"We must wait till Nan winds up the bazaar."

He thought not. In what bank had she its money?

When she said not in any he frowned. Whereupon she smilingly stammered
that she was told the banks themselves were sending their treasure into
the country, and that even ten days earlier, when some one wanted to
turn a fund into its safest portable form, three banks had declined to
give foreign exchange for it at any price.

"Hmm!" he mused. "Was that your, eh,--?"

"My husband, yes," said Anna, so quietly that the sister and stepmother
exulted in her. As quietly her eyes held the doctor's, and his hers,
while the colour mounted to her brow. He spoke:

"Still he got it into some good shape for you, the fund, did he not?"
Then suddenly he clapped a hand to a breast pocket and stared: "He gave
me a letter for you. Did I--? Ah, yes, I have your written thanks. Anna,
I thoroughly approve what you and he have done."

Constance and Miranda were overjoyed. He turned to them: "I told Hilary
so up in camp. I told Steve. Yes, Anna, you were wise. You are wise.
I've no doubt you're doing wisely about that fund."

It was hard for the wise one not to look guilty.

"Have you told anybody," he continued, "in what form y