ed she was in Georgia, in her old room, with the sick
baby in her arms.

Susan's _friends_, the Abolitionists, were highly indignant at the turn
affairs had taken. They had accordingly a new and fruitful subject of
discussion at the sewing societies and quilting bees of the town. In solemn
conclave it was decided to vote army people down as utterly disagreeable.
One old maid suggested the propriety of their immediately getting up a
petition for disbanding the army; but the motion was laid on the table in
consideration of John Quincy Adams being dead and buried, and therefore not
in a condition to present the petition. Susan became quite cheerful, and
gained twenty pounds in an incredibly short space of time, though strange
rumors continued to float about the army. It was stated at a meeting of the
F.S.F.S.T.W.T.R. (Female Society for Setting the World to Rights) that
"army folks were a low, dissipated set, for they put wine in their _puddin_
sauce."

I do not mean to say liberty is not, next to life, the greatest of God's
earthly gifts, and that men and women ought not to be happier free than
slaves. God forbid that I should so have read my Bible. But such cases as
Susan's do occur, and far oftener than the raw-head and bloody-bones'
stories with which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has seen fit to embellish
that interesting romance, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

CHAPTER V.

Capt. Moore suddenly seized the poker, and commenced stirring the fire
vigorously. Neptune rushed to his covert under the piano, and Mrs. Moore
called out, "Dont, dear, for heaven's sake."

"Why, it's getting cold," said Captain Moore, apologetically. "Don't you
hear the wind?"

"Yes, but I don't feel it, neither do you. The fire cannot be improved. See
how you have made the dust fly! You never can let well alone."

"That is the trouble with the Abolitionists," said Colonel Watson. "They
can't let well alone, and so Mr. Kent and his party want to reorganize the
Southern country."

"There is no well there to let alone," said Mr. Kent, with the air of a
Solomon.

"Don't talk so, Mr. Kent," said Mrs. Moore, entreatingly, "for I can't
quarrel with you in my own house, and I feel very much inclined to do so
for that one sentence."

"Now," said the bachelor captain, "I do long to hear you and Mr. Kent
discuss Abolition. The colonel and I may be considered disinterested
listeners, as we hail from the Middle States, and are not politicians.
Captain M