ophesied this whole matter to her grandmother, whose only response was
that same marveling note of nearly four years earlier--

"You are a genius!"

LXXI

SOLDIERS OF PEACE

In March, 'Sixty-five, the Confederacy lay dying. While yet in Virginia
and the Carolinas, at Mobile and elsewhere her armies daily, nightly
strove on, bled on, a stricken quiet and great languor had come over
her, a quiet with which the quiet ending of this tale is only in
reverent keeping.

On Mobile's eastern side Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, her last
defenses, were fighting forty thousand besiegers. Kincaid's Battery was
there, and there was heavy artillery, of course, but this time the
"ladies' men"--still so called--had field-guns, though but three. They
could barely man that number. One was a unit of the original six lost
"for them, not by them," at Vicksburg, and lately recovered.

Would there were time for its story! The boys had been sent up the state
to reinforce Forrest. Having one evening silenced an opposing battery,
and stealing over in the night and bringing off its best gun, they had
slept about "her" till dawn, but then had laughed, hurrahed, danced, and
wept round her and fallen upon her black neck and kissed her big lips on
finding her no other than their own old "Roaring Betsy." She might have
had a gentler welcome had not her lads just learned that while they
slept _the_ "ladies' man" had arrived from Mobile with a bit of news
glorious alike for him and them.

The same word reached New Orleans about the same date. Flora, returning
from a call on Irby, brought it to her grandmother. In the middle of
their sitting-room, with the worst done-for look yet, standing behind a
frail chair whose back she gripped with both hands, she meditatively
said--

"All privieuse statement' ab-out that court-martial on the 'vacuation of
Ford Powell are prim-ature. It has, with highez' approval, _acquit_'
every one concern' in it." She raised the light chair to the limit of
her reach and brought it down on another with a force that shivered
both. Madame rushed for a door, but--"Stay!" amiably said the maiden.
"Pick up the pieces--for me--eh? I'll have to pick up the pieces of you
some day--soon--I hope--mm?"

She took a book to a window seat, adding as she went, "Victorine. You've
not heard ab-out that, neither? She's biccome an orphan. Hmm! Also--the
little beggar!--she's--married. Yes. To Charles Valcour. My God! I wish
I was