f power. That's the worst of it," added Talbot.
"The boys at the front are hauled around so much by the politicians that
they are losing confidence in everybody here in Richmond. Why, when
President Davis himself came down and reviewed us with a great crowd of
staff officers before Missionary Ridge, the boys all along the line set
up the cry: 'Give us somethin' to eat, Mr. Jeff; give us somethin' to
eat! We're hungry! We're hungry!' And that may be the reason why we were
thrashed so badly by Grant not long after."

Prescott saw that the rain had almost ceased, and as he suggested that
he must hurry on, the others rose to go with him from the house. He left
them at the next corner, glad to have made such friends, and quickened
his footsteps as he continued alone.

CHAPTER II

A MAN'S MOTHER

It was a modest house to which Prescott turned his steps, built two
stories in height, of red brick, with green shutters over the windows,
and in front a little brick-floored portico supported on white columns
in the Greek style. His heart gave a great beat as he noticed the open
shutters and the thin column of smoke rising from the chimney. The
servants at least were there! He had been gone three years, and three
years of war is a long time to one who is not yet twenty-five. There was
no daily mail from the battlefield, and he had feared that the house
would be closed.

He lifted the brass knocker and struck but once. That was sufficient, as
before the echo died his mother herself, come before the time set,
opened the door. Mrs. Prescott embraced her son, and she was even less
demonstrative than himself, though he was generally known to his
associates as a reserved man; but he knew the depth of her feelings. One
Northern mother out of every ten had a son who never came back, but it
was one Southern mother in every three who was left to mourn.

She only said: "My son, I feared that I should never see you again."
Then she noticed the thinness of his clothing and its dampness. "Why,
you are cold and wet," she added.

"I do not feel so now, mother," he replied.

She smiled, and her smile was that of a young girl. As she drew him
toward the fire in a dusky room it seemed to him that some one else went
out.

"I heard your footsteps on the portico," she said.

"And you knew that it was me, mother," he interrupted, as he reached
down and patted her softly on the cheek.

He could not remember the time when he did not ha