ied to read out the news from Virginia, which could still
reach them through besieged Atlanta. It was of the Petersburg mine and
its slaughter, and thrilled every one. Yet Anna watched Bartleson open
his yellow official envelope.

"Marching orders?" asked Miranda, and while his affirming smile startled
every one, Steve, for some reason in the newspaper itself, put it up.

"Are the enemy's ships--?" began Anna--

"We're ordered down the bay," replied Bartleson.

"Then so are we," she dryly responded, at which all laughed, though the
two women had spent much time of late on a small boat which daily made
the round of the bay's defenses. In a dingy borrowed rig they hastened
away toward their lodgings.

As they drove, Anna pressed Miranda's hand and murmured, "Oh, for Hilary
Kincaid!"

"Ah, dear! not to be in this--'tea-party'?"

"Yes! Yes! His boys were in so many without him, from Shiloh to Port
Gibson, and now, with all their first guns lost forever--theirs and
ours--lost _for_ them, not by them--and after all this year of
idleness, and the whole battery hanging to his name as it does--oh,
'Randy, it would do more to cure his hurts than ten hospitals, there or
here."

"But the new risks, Nan, as he takes them!"

"He'll take them wherever he is. I can't rest a moment for fear he's
trying once more to escape."

(In fact, that is what, unknown to her, he had just been doing.)

"But, 'Randa?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Whether he's here or there, Kincaid's Battery, his other self, will be
in whatever goes on, and so, of course, will the _Tennessee_."

"Yes," said Miranda, at their door.

"Yes, and it's not just all our bazaar money that's in her, nor all our
toil--"

"Nor all your sufferings," interrupted Miranda, as Constance wonderingly
let them in.

"Oh, nor yours! nor Connie's! nor all--his; nor our whole past of the
last two interminable years; but this whole poor terrified city's fate,
and, for all we know, the war's final issue! And so I--Here, Con,"
(handing a newspaper), "from Steve, husband."

(Behind the speaker Miranda, to Constance, made eager hand and lip
motions not to open it there.)

"And so, 'Ran, I wish we could go ashore to-morrow, as far down the bay
as we can make our usefulness an excuse, and stay!--day and
night!--till--!" She waved both hands.

Constance stared: "Why, Nan Callender!"

"Now, Con, hush. You and Steve Second are non-combatants! Oh, 'Randa,
let's do it! For if those shi