e beginning! But
she is rousing herself--she will be brave at last."

Judith softly took the hand beside her and lifted it to her lips. "I
don't see how your children could help being brave. You are well cared
for where you are?"

"Yes, indeed. Though if my old friend had not taken us in, I do not know
what we should have done. The city is fearfully crowded."

"I walked from the hospital with father. He says that the battle will be
very soon."

"I know. The cannon grow louder every night. I feel an assurance, too,
that the army is coming from the Valley."

"Sometimes," said Judith, "I say to myself, 'This is a dream--all but
one thing! Now it is time to wake up--only remembering that the one
thing is true.' But the dream goes on, and it gets heavier and more
painful."

"Yes," said Margaret. "But there are great flashes of light through it,
Judith."

They were walking beneath linden trees, fragrant, and filled with
murmurous sound. The street here was quiet; only a few passing people.
As the two approached the corner there turned it a slight figure, a girl
dressed in homespun with a blue sunbonnet. In her hands was a cheap
carpet-bag, covered with roses and pansies. She looked tired and
discouraged, and she set the carpet-bag down on the worn brick pavement
and waited until the two ladies came near. "Please, could you tell me--"
she began in a soft, drawling voice, which broke suddenly. "Oh, it's
Mrs. Cleave! it's Mrs. Cleave!--Oh! oh!"

"Christianna Maydew!--Why, Christianna!"

Christianna was crying, though evidently they were joyful tears. "I--I
was so frightened in this lonely place!--an'--an' Thunder Run's so far
away--an'--an' Billy an' Pap an' Dave aren't here, after all--an' I
never saw so many strange people--an' then I saw _you_--oh! oh!"

So brushed aside in this war city were all unnecessary conventions, that
the three sat down quite naturally upon a wide church step. An old and
wrinkled nurse, in a turban like a red tulip, made room for them, moving
aside a perambulator holding a sleeping babe. "F'om de mountains, ain'
she, ma'am? She oughter stayed up dar close ter Hebben!"

Christianna dried her eyes. Her sunbonnet had fallen back. She looked
like a wild rose dashed with dew. "I am such a fool to cry!" said
Christianna. "I ought to be laughin' an' clappin' my hands. I reckon
I'm tired. Streets are so hard an' straight, an' there's such a terrible
number of houses."

"How did you come, Chris