w them
torturing him in a thousand ways the barbarians! I know he had to sleep
on a dirty floor with low-down trash."

"But we shall have him here to-night, Aunt Lillian!" cried Virginia.
"Mammy, tell Uncle Ben that Mr. Clarence will be here for tea. We must
have a feast for him. Pa said that they could not hold them."

"Where is Comyn?" inquired Mrs. Colfax. "Has he gone down to see
Clarence?"

"He went to Jefferson City last night," replied Virginia. "The Governor
sent for him."

Mrs. Colfax exclaimed in horror at this news.

"Do you mean that he has deserted us?" she cried. "That he has left us
here defenceless,--at the mercy of the Dutch, that they may wreak their
vengeance upon us women? How can you sit still, Virginia? If I were your
age and able to drag myself to the street, I should be at the Arsenal
now. I should be on my knees before that detestable Captain Lyon, even
if he is a Yankee." Virginia kept her temper.

"I do not go on my knees to any man," she said. "Rosetta, tell Ned I
wish the carriage at once."

Her aunt seized her convulsively by the arm.

"Where are you going, Jinny?" she demanded. "Your Pa would never forgive
me if anything happened to you."

A smile, half pity, crossed the girl's anxious face.

"I am afraid that I must risk adding to your misfortune, Aunt Lillian,"
she said, and left the room.

Virginia drove to Mr. Brinsmade's. His was one of the Union houses which
she might visit and not lose her self respect. Like many Southerners,
when it became a question of go or stay, Mr. Brinsmade's unfaltering
love for the Union had kept him in. He had voted for Mr. Bell, and later
had presided at Crittenden Compromise meetings. In short, as a man of
peace, he would have been willing to sacrifice much for peace. And now
that it was to be war, and he had taken his stand uncompromisingly with
the Union, the neighbors whom he had befriended for so many years could
not bring themselves to regard him as an enemy. He never hurt their
feelings; and almost as soon as the war began he set about that work
which has been done by self-denying Christians of all ages,--the relief
of suffering. He visited with comfort the widow and the fatherless, and
many a night in the hospital he sat through beside the dying, Yankee and
Rebel alike, and wrote their last letters home.

And Yankee and Rebel alike sought his help and counsel in time of
perplexity or trouble, rather than hotheaded advice from their o