te dresses with beltings of black sashes,
flared jauntily out above spotless white stockings and sober little
slippers, while black-bound Leghorn hats shaded three anxious little
countenances. By the exact center, each held a little handkerchief,
black-bordered.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou wore each an anxious seriousness
of countenance, but it was a variant seriousness; for as the hour
approached, the solemn importance of the occasion was stealing
brain-ward, and Emmy Lou even began to feel glad she was a part of
The Exhibition, for to have been left out would have been worse even
than the moment of mounting the platform.

"My grown-up brother's coming," said Hattie, "an' my mamma an' gran'ma
an' the rest."

"My Aunt Cordelia has invited the visiting lady next door," said Emmy
Lou.

But it was Sadie's hour. "Our minister's coming," said Sadie.

Emmy Lou's part was to weep when Sadie wept, and to point a chubby
forefinger skyward when Hattie mentioned the departure from earth of the
soldier parent, and to lower that forefinger footward at Sadie's tearful
allusion to an untimely grave.

Emmy Lou had but one utterance, and it was brief. She was to advance one
foot, stretch forth a hand and say, in the character of orphan for whom
no asylum was offered, "We know not where we go." All day, Emmy Lou had
been saying it at intervals of half minutes, for fear she might forget.

Meanwhile, it yet lacking a moment or so of two o'clock, the orphaned
heroes continued to linger at the gate, awaiting the hour.

"Listen," said Hattie, "I hear music."

There was a church across the street. It was a large church with high
steps and a pillared portico, and its doors were open.

"It's a band, and marching," said Hattie.

The orphaned children hurried to the curb. A procession was turning the
corner and coming toward them. On either sidewalk crowds of men and boys
accompanied it.

"It's a funeral," said Sadie.

Hattie turned with a face of conviction. "I know. It's that big
general's funeral; they're bringing him home to bury him with the
soldiers."

"We'll never see a thing for the crowd," despaired Sadie.

Emmy Lou was gazing. "They've got plumes in their hats," she said.

"Let's go over on the church steps and see it go by," said Hattie, "it's
early."

The orphaned children hurried across the street. They climbed the steps.
At the top they turned. There were plumes and more, there were flags and
swords, and a b