ectly disfigured!--the poor, dear
boy"--she laughed hysterically--"he had a hot bath and I've been
mending the rags that he and Curt call unifo'ms--and I found clean
flannels fo' them both in the attic----"

"_What_ does all this mean--all this camping outside?" he
interrupted gently.

"Curt doesn't know. The camps and hospitals west of us have been
shelled, and all the river roads are packed full of ambulances and
stretchers going east."

"Where is my regiment?"

"The Lancers rode away yesterday with General Stoneman--all except
haidqua'ters and one squadron--yours, I think--and they are acting
escort to General Sykes at the overseers house beyond the oak
grove. Your colonel is on his staff, I believe."

He lay silent, watching the burning fuses of the shells as they
soared up into the night, whirling like fiery planets on their
axes, higher, higher, mounting through majestic altitudes to the
pallid stars, then, curving, falling faster, faster, till their
swift downward glare split the darkness into broad sheets of light.

"Phil," she whispered, "I think there is a house on fire across the
river!"

Far away in the darkness rows of tiny windows in an unseen mansion
had suddenly become brilliantly visible.

"It--it must be Mr. Ruffin's house," she said in an awed voice.
"Oh, Phil! It _is_! Look! It's all on fire--it's--oh, see the
flames on the roof! This is terrible--terrible--" She caught her
breath.

"Phil! There's another house on fire! Do you see--do you _see_!
It's Ailsa's house--Marye-mead! Oh, how could they set it on
fire--how could they have the heart to burn that sweet old place!"

"Is that Marye-mead?" he asked.

"It _must_ be. That's where it ought to stand--and--oh! oh! it's
all on fire, Phil, all on fire!"

"Shells from the gun-boats," he muttered, watching the entire sky
turn crimson as the flames burst into fury, lighting up clumps of
trees and outhouses. And, as they looked, the windows of another
house began to kindle ominously; little tongues of fire fluttered
over a distant cupola, leaped across to a gallery, ran up in
vinelike tendrils which flowered into flame, veining everything in
a riotous tangle of brilliancy. And through the kindling darkness
the sinister boom--boom! of the guns never ceased, and the shells
continued to mount, curve, and fall, streaking the night with
golden incandescence.

Outside the gates, at the end of the cedar-lined avenue, where the
highwa