pered into
dainty ears. She went back with Aunt Almira's promise to provide still
more raiment for her _trousseau_, and finally with Aunt Almira's tearful
tale that her heart, too, was with the Eleventh, wherein her own beloved
boy, her idolized black sheep, was a trooper serving his country on a
private's pay and under the name of Brannan; and then, with a start,
Almira bethought her of certain wild, raving letters that she had left
hidden at home,--letters she had never spoken of to anybody,--letters
that had come to her from time to time in the spring and early summer
and then suddenly ceased, as Percy's had, entirely, for there were long
weeks that battle year when the field column was cut off from all
communication with friends and home, and these letters, too, had told of
Brannan,--told things she would not, could not tell Aunt Almira,--could
not indeed tell anybody, for her letters, though signed Bertie, were
written by another trooper, whose address was Howard.

After such joys under Aunt Almira's roof, life at home became
insupportable. Mrs. Quimby said it was Almira herself, not the life.
Clash followed clash; there came sneers, tears, squabbles, rows, and at
last practical banishment. Old Quimby could stand it no longer. Almira
went to live with her prospective mother-in-law, who was not sorry, and
who, hearing for weeks only her side of the story, believed all she said
about home troubles and their inciting cause. She could not hear enough
about Percy, and so who so welcome as Almira, who never tired of the
topic, or of the telling of the officers she had met and all they had
said of him and of his spirited conduct. Even a great general, she said,
had been presented, and before all the company had drawn her to his
broad-sashed, button-studded bosom and kissed her mantling cheek, as was
his way with every pretty girl he met,--Almira did not mention that. And
then these two women, invalid mother and impatient daughter-in-law
elect, were drawn closely together by tidings of Percy's illness,
Percy's careful nursing, etc., then of Percy's slow convalescence. They
could not go to him, because Mrs. Davies was far too feeble. Almira
raved about going,--wanted to go,--wept, implored, and ranted, but her
father was implacable and Mrs. Davies opposed. The latter was sure
everything was being done that could be done and she needed Almira. But
from the very first Almira was suspicious of Mrs. Cranston and Miss
Loomis, je