spects darken,
that it begins to sound stale.

May 27th.

The cry is "Ho! for Greenwell!" Very probably this day week will see us
there. I don't want to go. If we were at peace, and were to spend a few
months of the warmest season out there, none would be more eager and
delighted than I: but to leave our comfortable home, and all it
contains, for a rough pine cottage seventeen miles away even from this
scanty civilization, is sad. It must be! We are hourly expecting two
regiments of Yankees to occupy the Garrison, and some fifteen hundred
of our men are awaiting them a little way off, so the fight seems
inevitable. And we must go, leaving what little has already been spared
us to the tender mercies of Northern volunteers, who, from the specimen
of plundering they gave us two weeks ago, will hardly leave us even the
shelter of our roof. O my dear Home! How can I help but cry at leaving
you forever? For if this fight occurs, never again shall I pass the
threshold of this house, where we have been so happy and sad, the scene
of joyous meetings and mournful partings, the place where we greeted
each other with glad shouts after even so short a parting, the place
where Harry and father kissed us good-bye and never came back again!

I know what Lavinia has suffered this long year, by what we have
suffered these last six weeks. Poor Lavinia, so far away! How easier
poverty, if it must come, would be if we could bear it together! I
wonder if the real fate of the boys, if we ever hear, can be so
dreadful as this suspense? Still no news of them. My poor little Jimmy!
And think how desperate Gibbes and George will be when they read
Butler's proclamation, and they not able to defend us! Gibbes was in
our late victory of Fredericksburg, I know.

In other days, going to Greenwell was the signal for general noise and
confusion. All the boys gathered their guns and fishing-tackle, and
thousand and one amusements; father sent out provisions; we helped
mother pack; Hal and I tumbled over the libraries to lay in a supply of
reading material; and all was bustle until the carriage drove to the
door at daylight one morning, and swept us off. It is not so gay this
time. I wandered around this morning selecting books alone. We can only
take what is necessary, the rest being left to the care of the Northern
militia in general. I never knew before how many articles were
perfectly "in