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Look here, Mr. Brice, why did you leave St. Louis?" "They began to draft, sir, and I couldn't stand it any longer." "But you wouldn't have been drafted. You were in the Home Guards, if I remember right. And Mr. Brinsmade tells me you were useful in many ways What was your rank in the Home Guards?" "Lieutenant colonel, sir." "And what are you here?"
Brinsmade was silent, leaning back in the corner of the carriage, and Virginia absorbed in her own thoughts. Drawing near the city, that dreaded sound, the rumble of drums, roused them. A shot rang out, and they were jerked violently by the starting of the horses. As they dashed across Walnut at Seventh came the fusillade. Virginia leaned out of the window.
"Well, sir," he said, "I have yet to read a more sensible speech, except some of Abraham Lincoln's. Brinsmade gave it to me to read. Whipple, that speech reminded me of Lincoln. It was his style. Where did you get it, Mr. Brice?" he demanded. "I heard Mr. Lincoln's debate with Judge Douglas at 'Freeport," said Stephen; beginning to be amused. The Major laughed.
Still Virginia sat on the porch, while the frogs sang of rain, and the lightning quivered across the eastern sky. She heard the crunch of wheels in the gravel. A bar of light, peopled by moths, slanted out of the doorway and fell on a closed carriage. A gentleman slowly ascended the steps. Virginia recognized him as Mr. Brinsmade. "Your cousin Clarence has come home, my dear," he said.
The presence of a tall form beside him shook him from his revery, and he looked up to recognize the benevolent face of Mr. Brinsmade. "Mrs. Brice may be anxious, Stephen, at the late hour," said he. "My carriage is here, and it will give me great pleasure to convey you to your door." Dear Mr. Brinsmade! He is in heaven now, and knows at last the good he wrought upon earth.
Stephen, who had in truth read the stories in question a month or two before, could not conceal his embarrassment He looked at the man in front of him, alert, masterful intelligent, frank to any stranger who took his fancy, and wondered how any one who had talked to him could believe them. Mr. Brinsmade smiled. "They have to print something, General," he said.
He held her hand a little at parting, and bade her be of good cheer. Perhaps he guessed something of the trial she was to go through that night alone with her aunt, Clarence's mother. Mr. Brinsmade did not go directly home. He went first to the little house next door to his. Mrs.
"I am sure they are," said George Catherwood. "One of the halls is on Twelfth Street, and they have sentries posted out so that you can't get near them. Pa has an idea that Tom goes there. And he told him that if he ever got evidence of it, he'd show him the door." "Do you really think that Tom is with the Yankees?" asked Jack Brinsmade.
With not indifferent elation these gentlemen watched the departure of brethren with whom they had labored for many years, save only when Mr. Brinsmade walked down the aisle never to return. So it is that war, like a devastating flood, creeps insistent into the most sacred places, and will not be denied. Mr.
"Brinsmade," he said, "do you remember this room in May, '46?" Mr. Brinsmade, startled, turned upon him quickly. "Why, Colonel, you have read my very thoughts," he said. "Some of those who were here then are are still in Mexico." "And some who came home, Brinsmade, blamed God because they had not fallen," said the Colonel.
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