h food; _her_ hand that
was never known to be stretched forth in charity to the deserving; nay,
the roof, forbidden by prowling rebels to shelter its master, was
proffered to his enemies by its dishonored mistress.

When tried beyond reason, Duncan Lisle arose in his wrath and asserted
his mastery. Well might any true woman have quailed before that
uprising, but not Rusha Thornton Lisle. A woman weaker-minded would
have packed her silver, gathered her valuables, and fled to Thornton
Hall, where she might harbor her dear rebels _ad infinitum_. This
strong-minded woman well knew that by such a course of action she would
be pleasing everybody but herself. She was not so fond of conferring
happiness, nor so capable of self-sacrifice. So she continued to wage
war within her household, more constantly vexatious to her husband, more
tyrannous to her servants.

What added to Mrs. Lisle's bitterness was the conduct of her son. At the
opening of hostilities, he had joined a rebel company, inflated with the
idea that in a few weeks, or months at farthest, the Northern "mudsills"
would be overwhelmed and out of sight. No one, except his mother, had
talked louder and faster than himself. With his single hand he could
slay a dozen of the cowardly Yankees.

After all this bravado, at the first smell of gunpowder, Thornton Rush
threw down his firearms in a panic and ran as if from a sweeping tempest
of fire and brimstone. Sleeping by day in hollow logs, traveling by
night with haste and stealth, he made his way to the hated Northern
lines, went as fast as cars could carry him to New York city, and, on a
flying steamer, sneaked to Europe. There, once landed, he wrote his
mother a letter. She had thought him dead, and mourned him proudly, as
for a hero fallen for his country. She half read his letter, and threw
it into the fire. Not dead, but a poltroon, a coward! She stamped her
foot with contempt. _Her_ son to lack courage?--_her_ son a deserter
from his post? She, woman as she was, would have gone into battle with
the courage of a Caesar, the constancy of a Hannibal; but this son of
hers, in whose veins flowed the cowardly northern blood, what could she
expect of him, the son of Jude Rush?--and she curled her lip with
contempt for both father and son. She ceased to mention his name, and
revealed to no one that he still lived. Moreover, she disdained
answering his letter, even had she not destroyed his written, but unread
address an