t the sun never seemed so warm, the air so pure, as this
summer,--that about the quiet farm and homestead there is a genial
atmosphere of peace: the wounded soldiers who come there often to be
cured grow strong and calm in it; the war seems far-off to them; they
have come somehow a step nearer the inner heaven. Bone rejoices in
showing off the wonders of the place to them, in matching Coly's shiny
sides against the "Government beastesses," in talking of the giant red
beets, or crumpled green cauliflower, breaking the rich garden-mould.
"Yer've no sich cherries nor taters nor raspberries as dem in de Norf,
I'll bet!" Even the crimson trumpet-flower on the wall is "a _Virginny_
creeper, Sah!" But Bone learns something from them in exchange. He does
not boast so often now of being "ole Mars' Joe's man,"--sits and thinks
profoundly, till he goes to sleep. "Not of leavin' yer, Mist' Dode, I
know what free darkies is, up dar; but dar's somefin' in a fellah's
'longin' ter hisself, af'er all!" Dode only smiles at his deep
cogitations, as he weeds the garden-beds, or fodders the stock. She is a
half-Abolitionist herself, and then she knows her State will soon be
free.

So Dode, with deeper-lit eyes, and fresher rose in her cheek, stands in
the door this summer evening waiting for her husband. She cannot see him
often; he has yet the work to do which he calls just and holy. But he is
coming now. It is very quiet; she can hear her own heart beat slow and
full; the warm air holds moveless the delicate scent of the clover; the
bees hum her a drowsy good-night, as they pass; the locusts in the
lindens have just begun to sing themselves to sleep; but the glowless
crimson in the West holds her thought the longest. She loves,
understands color: it speaks to her of the Day waiting just behind this.
Her eyes fill with tears, she knows not why: her life seems rounded,
complete, wrapt in a great peace; the grave at Manassas, and that
planted with moss on the hill yonder, are in it; they only make her joy
in living more tender and holy.

He has come now; stops to look at his wife's face, as though its
fairness and meaning were new to him always. There is no look in her
eyes he loves so well to see as that which tells her Master is near her.
Sometimes she thinks he too----But she knows that "according to her
faith it shall be unto her." They are alone to-night; even Bone is
asleep. But in the midst of a crowd, they who love each other are al