o
classes--women of beautiful meekness and men of heroic courage.

Helen had broken down an old convention, having made an attempt that few
women of her class and period would have dared, and at a time, too, when
she might have been fearful of the results. She was joyous as if a
burden had been lifted. Prescott rarely had seen her in such spirits.
She, who was usually calm and grave, seemed to have forgotten the war.
She laughed and jested and saw good humour in everything.

Prescott could not avoid catching the infection from the woman whom he
most admired. The atmosphere--the very air--took on an unusual
brilliancy. The brick walls and the shingled roofs glittered in the
crisp, wintry sunshine; the schoolboys, caps over their ears and mittens
on their fingers, played and shouted in the streets just as if peace
reigned and the cannon were not rumbling onward over there beyond the
trees.

"Isn't this world beautiful at times?" said Helen.

"It is," replied Robert, "and it seems all the more strange to me that
we should profane it by war. But here comes Mrs. Markham. Let us see how
she will greet you."

Mrs. Markham was in a sort of basket cart drawn by an Accomack pony, one
of those ugly but stout little horses which do much service in Virginia
and she was her own driver, her firm white wrists showing above her
gloves as she held the reins. She checked her speed at sight of Robert
and Helen and stopped abreast of them.

"I was not deceiving you the other night, Captain Prescott," she said,
after a cheerful good-afternoon "when I told you that all my carriage
horses had been confiscated. Ben Butler, here--I call him Ben Butler
because he is low-born and has no manners--arrived only last night,
bought for me by my husband with a whole wheelbarrowful of Confederate
bills: is it not curious how we, who have such confidence in our
Government, will not trust its money."

She flicked Ben Butler with her whip, and the pony reared and tried to
bolt, but presently she reduced him to subjection.

"Did I not tell you that he had no manners," she said. "Oh, how I wish I
had the real Ben Butler under my hand, too! I've heard what you've done,
Helen. But, tell me, is it really true? Have you actually gone to
work--as a clerk in an office, like a low-born Northern woman?"

The colour in Helen's cheeks deepened and Robert saw the faintest quiver
of her lower lip.

"It is true," she replied. "I am a secretary in Mr. Sefton's