among the domestics turned their eyes down into the garden.
Beyond the lingering vehicles a lieutenant from Camp Callender rode up
the drive. Two or three private soldiers hung back at the gate.

"It's horses and mules again, Nan," gravely remarked Constance, and the
three, facing toward him, with Miranda foremost, held soft debate.
Whether the decision they reached was to submit or resist, the wide ears
of the servants could not be sure, but by the time the soldier was
dismounting the ladies had summoned the nerve to jest.

"Be a man, Miranda!" murmured Constance.

"But not the kind I was!" prompted Anna.

"No," said her sister, "for this one coming is already scared to death."

"So's Miranda," breathed Anna as he came up the steps uncovering and
plainly uncomfortable. A pang lanced through her as she caught herself
senselessly recalling the flag presentation. And then--

[Illustration: Music]

"--oh! _oh!_"

"Mrs. Callender?" asked the stranger.

"Yes, sir," said that lady.

"My business"--he glanced back in nervous protest as the drivers
beneath gathered their reins--"will you kindly detain--?"

"If you wish, sir," she replied, visibly trembling. "Isaac--"

From the rear of the group came the voice of Anna: "Miranda, dear, I
wouldn't stop them." The men regathered the lines. She moved half a step
down and stayed herself on her sister's shoulder. Miranda wrinkled back
at her in an ecstasy of relief:

"Oh, Anna, do speak for all of us!"

The teams started away. A distress came into the soldier's face, but
Anna met it with a sober smile: "Don't be troubled, sir, you shall have
them. Drive round into the basement, Ben, and unload." The drivers went.
"You shall have them, sir, on your simple word of honor as--"

"Of course you will be reimbursed. I pledge--"

"No, sir," tearfully put in Constance, "we've given our men, we can't
sell our beasts."

"They are not ours to sell," said Anna.

"Why, Nan!"

"They belong to Kincaid's Battery," said Anna, and Constance, Miranda,
and the servants smiled a proud approval. Even the officer flushed with
a fine ardor:

"You have with you a member of that command?"

"We have."

"Then, on my honor as a Southern soldier, if he will stay by them and us
as far as Camp Moore, to Kincaid's Battery they shall go. But, ladies--"

"Yes," knowingly spoke Miranda. "Hettie, Scipio, Dilsie, you-all can go
'long back to your work now." She wrinkled confidentially to the