st be mistaken. However, my
backward glance revealed an officer muffled up in a military
greatcoat, cap drawn down over his eyes, following us in rapid
pursuit, and by the time we were upon the top step a pair of strong
arms caught me; the captive's head was thrown back, and she was
kissed again and again by her husband before she could recover from
the delightful surprise he had given her. The good old minister
chuckled gleefully, and was no doubt a sincere sharer in the joy and
relief experienced by his charge. When I asked my husband why he did
not come forward when I got out of the coach, he said he wanted to
assure himself that it was his own wife, as he didn't want to commit
the blunder of kissing anybody else's esposa!"

The people amongst whom they found themselves were Virginian to the
core. In Winchester itself the feeling against the North was
exceptionally bitter. The town was no mushroom settlement; its
history stretched back to the old colonial days; the grass-grown
intrenchments on the surrounding hills had been raised by Washington
during the Indian wars, and the traditions of the first struggle for
independence were not yet forgotten. No single section of the South
was more conservative. Although the citizens had been strong
Unionists, nowhere were the principles which their fathers had
respected, the sovereignty of the individual State and the right of
secession, more strongly held, and nowhere had the hereditary spirit
of resistance to coercive legislation blazed up more fiercely. The
soldiers of Bull Run, who had driven the invader from the soil of
Virginia, were the heroes of the hour, and the leader of the
Stonewall Brigade had peculiar claims on the hospitality of the town.
It was to the people of the Valley that he owed his command. "With
one voice," wrote the Secretary of War, "have they made constant and
urgent appeals that to you, in whom they have confidence, their
defence should be assigned."

"The Winchester ladies," says Mrs. Jackson, "were amongst the most
famous of Virginia housekeepers, and lived in a good deal of
old-fashioned elegance and profusion. The old border town had not
then changed hands with the conflicting armies, as it was destined to
do so many times during the war. Under the rose-coloured light in
which I viewed everything that winter, it seemed to me that no people
could have been more cultivated, attractive, and noble-hearted.
Winchester was rich in happy homes and p