enly to the front; he was only at home four days, and the
day after he got back to camp was the day he was killed, poor boy"--

"I remember something about it now," Tom hastened to say. "I remember
my mother's talking about the breaking up of Southern homes, and all
that; she never believed it until she saw the cup, and I thought it
was awfully silly. I was at the age when I could have blown our own
house to pieces just for the sake of the racket."

"And that terrible year your grandfather's and your mother's death
followed, and I was left alone with you--two of us out of the five
that had made my home"--

"I should say one and a half," insisted Tom, with some effort. "What a
boy I was for a grandson! Thank Heaven, there comes a time when we are
all the same age! We are jolly together now, aren't we? Come, dear old
lady, don't let's think too much of what's gone by;" and he went round
the table and gave her a kiss, and stood there where she need not look
him in the face, holding her dear thin hand as long as ever she liked.

"I want you to take that silver cup back, Tom," she said presently, in
her usual tone. "Go back and finish your coffee." She had seldom
broken down like this. Mrs. Burton had been self-possessed, even to
apparent coldness, in earlier life.

"How in the world am I going to take it back?" asked Tom, most
businesslike and calm. "Do you really know just where it came from?
And then it was several years ago."

"Your grandfather knew; they were Virginia people, of course, and
happened to be old friends; one of the younger men was his own
classmate. He knew the crest and motto at once, but there were two or
three branches of the family, none of them, so far as he knew, living
anywhere near where your father was in camp. Poor Tom said that there
was a beautiful old house sacked and burnt, and everything scattered
that was saved. He happened to hear a soldier from another regiment
talking about it, and saw him tossing this cup about, and bought it
from him with all the money he happened to have in his pockets."

"Then he didn't really steal it himself!" exclaimed Tom, laughing a
little, and with a sense of relief.

"No, no, Tom!" said Mrs. Burton impatiently. "Only you see that it
really is a stolen thing, and I have had it all this time under my
roof. For a long time it was packed away with your father's war
relics, those things that I couldn't bear to see. And then I would
think of it only at nigh