of your new dress." She smiled courageously as she folded a piece of old silk she was remaking. "You and—" she cast a glance at Sally Ann—"your respected brother-in-law can wait a few moments, can't you? You might rehearse a little more. With all this important audience of solemn oaks you wouldn't want to make the slightest slip in your parts."

"That's so," agreed Virgie, raising her hands and clasping her tiny fingers thoughtfully. "And I'll tell you what—we'll mark off the castle walls around the bench where the window's going to be. We ought to have a stage. Come on Sal—I mean Blue Beard, pick up some sticks quick."

Mrs. Cary started, but turned back an instant: "By the way, have either of you seen Uncle Billy. I' must find him, too, and plan something for our lunch."

"I seen 'im early dis mawnin'," piped Blue Beard, "makin' for de woods. I reckon he be back pres'n'y."

"Very well," answered Virgie's mother, a shadow creeping into her face as she went on toward the house. Could Uncle Billy possibly be leaving! The most trusted negro of all! No—never! She would almost as soon doubt the cause itself!

Three long years ago war had seemed a thrilling, daring necessity. Caught in the dreadful net of circumstance she had vowed proudly in her own heart never to be less brave than the bravest. In her ears still rang the echo of that first ...

Tara-tara!

From far away a faint fanfare of trumpets, borne on brazen wings from the distant clamor of the city's streets.

Tara-tara!

"What's that—a bugle?"

R-r-r-r-rum-dum!

"And that—a drum?"

Tramp—tramp—tramp—the rolling thunder of ten thousand feet.

War has been declared!

From North to South, the marching lines fill the land—a sea of men whose flashing bayonets glisten and glitter in the morning light. With steady step and even rank, with thrill of brass lunged band and screaming fife the regiments sweep by—in front, the officers on their dancing steeds—behind them, line after line of youthful faces, chins in, chests out, the light of victory already shining in their eyes.

In just this way the Nation's sons went forth to fight in those first brave days of '61. Just so they marched out, defiant, from South and North alike, each side eager for the cause he thought was right, with bright pennons snapping in the breeze and bugles blowing gayly and never a thought in any man's mind but that his side would win and his own life be spared.

And every woman, too, waving cheerful farewell to valiant lines of marching gray or sturdy ranks of blue, had hoped the same for her side.

But in war there is always a reckoning to pay. Always one contender driven to the wall, his cities turned to ashes, his lands laid waste. Always one depleted side which takes one last desperate stand in the sight of blackened homes and outraged fields and fights on through ever darkening days until the inevitable end is come.

And the end of the Confederacy was now almost in sight. Three years of fighting and the Seceding States had been cut in twain, their armies widely separated by the Union hosts. Advancing and retreating but always fighting, month after month, year after year the men in gray had come at last to the bitterest period of it all—when the weakened South was slowly breaking under the weight of her brother foes—when the two greatest of the armies battled on Virginia soil—battled and passed to their final muster roll.

Of little need to tell of the privations which the pivotal state of the Confederacy went through. If it were true that Virginia had been simply one vast arsenal where every inhabitant had unfailingly done his part in making war, it was also true that she had furnished many of its greatest battlefields—and at what a frightful cost.

Everywhere were the cruel signs of destruction and want—in scanty larder, patched, refurbished clothing, servantless homes—in dismantled outhouses, broken fences and neglected, brier-choked fields. Even the staples of life were fast diminishing for every man who could shoulder a gun had gone to fight with Lee, and few animals were left and fewer slaves.

Yet, for all the dismal outlook, Winter had passed without actual disaster to the Confederate arms and now that Spring had come the plantation home of the Herbert Carys, twenty miles below Richmond, had never had a fairer setting. White-pillared and stately the old Colonial mansion stood on one of the low, emerald hills which roll back lazily from the peaceful James. It was true that the flower beds had been trampled down to ruin by alien horse and heel, but the scent of the honeysuckle clinging to those shining pillars only seemed the sweeter for the loss, and whatever else the forager might take, he could not rob them of their gracious vista of hills and shimmering river.

Across the broad driveway and up the steps of the veranda passed Mrs. Cary, fairer than had been the flowers, a true daughter of the oldtime South, gentle and quiet eyed, her light summer dress of the cheapest material, yet deftly fashioned by her own fingers from slightly opened neck, where an old brooch lay against her soft throat, down to the dainty spotless flounces lying above her petticoat of crinoline.

Though her lips and eyes refused to betray it even when there was no one to see, it was with a very heavy heart that she mounted the stairs to the attic, thinking, contriving, clutching desperately at her fading hopes.

For good reason the plantation was very silent on this warm spring morning. Where only a year before dozens of soft eyed Jerseys had ranged through the pastures and wood lots there was now no sound of tinkling bells—one after another the fine, blooded stock had been requisitioned by a sad faced quartermaster of the Army of Northern Virginia. And one by one the fat porkers who had muzzled greedily among the ears from the Cary bins and who ought to have gone into the smoke house had departed, squealing, to furnish bone and sinew with which to repel the invader. Saddest of all, the chicken coops down by the deserted negro quarters were quite as empty as the once teeming cabins themselves. Poverty, grim and relentless, had caught the Carys in its iron hand and behind Poverty stood its far more frightening shadow—Starvation.

But in these gloomy thoughts she was not entirely alone. All that troubled her and more, though perhaps in a different way, passed hourly through the old gray kinky head of Uncle Billy who happened at this very moment to be emerging stealthily from the woods below the house. Slowly and deliberately he made his way toward the front till he reached a bench where he sat down under a tree to ruminate over the situation and inspect the feathered prize which he had lately acquired by certain, devious means known only to Uncle Billy. Wiping his forehead with his ragged sleeve and holding the bird up by its tied feet he regarded it with the eye of an expert, and the fatigue of one who has been sorely put to it in order to accomplish his purpose.

"It 'pears to me," said Uncle Billy, "dat des' when you needs 'em the mostest the chickens goes to roosting higher 'n' higher. Rooster—I wonder who you b'longs to. Um-um!" he murmured as he thoughtfully sounded the rooster's well developed chest through the feathers. "From de feelin' of you, my son, I 'spec' you was raise' by one er de ol'es' fam'lies what is!"

But Uncle Billy knew the fortunes of the Cary family far too well to mourn over the probable toughness of his booty, and as he rose up from the seat and meandered toward the kitchen, his old, wrinkled face broke into a broad smile of satisfaction over the surprise he had in store. "Well—after I done parbile you, I reckon Miss Hallie be mighty glad to see you. Yas, seh!"

But as Uncle Billy walked slowly along beside the hedge which shielded the house on one side he heard a sound which