ery Southern woman knows how it was
when the great battles were fought and a trembling, white-lipped group
of women and aged men would stand huddled together to hear what the
midnight dispatches might have in store for them.

In the little upland village the refugees were closely knit together
by hopes and fears in common. When sorrow fell upon one household the
little community all mourned. But if the wires brought glad words that
all at the front were unharmed, there would come a period of happy
reaction; the little society would be wildly gay, especially if one or
more young heroes from the front had come home with a slight
wound,--just enough to make a demigod of him.

Such was Sedley's happy fate one never-to-be-forgotten summer, when
every girl in the village fell madly in love with his blue eyes and
his gray coat and his mustache and his lovely voice, as he strummed
the guitar in the moonlight,--and most of all with his merry laugh.
Did time permit, I might tell of such odd costumes, such make-ups of
homespun and lace, fine old silks and calicoes, in which the Dixie
girls danced so merrily.

It was just upon the heels of one of these happy seasons that a rumor
was whispered that the army was about to fall back and that the
offices and stores would be removed in consequence. At first the rumor
was rejected,--no good Confederate would listen to such treason; but
finally the croakers were proved to be right. The government stores
were hastily removed. The office-holders took a sad farewell of those
whom they left behind them, and the little town was abandoned to its
fate, outside the Confederate lines.

Sibyl and her mother were among the tearful group who watched the
little band of departing friends, as it passed out of the town, waved
a last adieu, and strained their dimmed eyes for a last sight of the
Confederate gray, ere they went sadly back to their homes.

When Sibyl and her mother reached home, they found Mammy already at
work. She had ripped open a feather bed, and amid its downy depths
she was burying whatever she could lay her hands upon. Clothing,
jewelry, even a china ornament or two,--all went in. It was a day or
two after that Rita complained of a great knot in her bed, which had
bruised her back and prevented her sleeping. Mammy heard her, but,
waiting until they were alone, said in a half whisper, "Honey, I knows
what dat knot is, 't ain't nothin' but your brother's cavalry boots
that I hid in