“Sir, we leave you to the tender mercies of your own friends,” she said. “You see I mean to keep my maid. You cannot send her to your wife.” Then she turned with a gentle smile to Lutie. “Come,” she said, “we will go, but I think we may never see the old house again, and I do not think you will ever see Jubal again, Lutie.” The maid caught her mistress’s hand in both of hers and laid her smooth brown cheek upon it. “Yuh loves me better’n Jubal does, Miss Letty. He lef’ me. He wa’n’t willin’ ter fight fo’ me. Yuh didn’t run an’ leave me, Miss Letty. De Lord bless yuh, my Miss Letty. I don’ spec I uvver see dat fool Jubal agin, an’ I don’ keer. I belongs ter yuh, an’ I is say my pra’rs ter God A’mighty fo’ dat till I dies.” “We take our leave of you, monsieur,” said Lettice with a sweeping courtesy, as she turned to leave the doorway. The man shook a feeble fist at her as she disappeared. “To leave my room so occupied is dreadful,” said Lettice; “yet better that than to be dragged from it myself. Good-by old home,” she cried, waving her hand. “We may never see you again.” “Don’t say so,” Betty entreated. “I want to think I am coming back soon.” But she, too, gazed out as long as she could, and until the trees hid the last bit of the white house. True enough, it was a last look, for an hour later a band of angry men appeared, who, after having rescued their fallen comrade, plundered the house and set fire to it, and by night only a mass of smouldering ruins remained. The carriage was driven along at a lively pace, Pat proving himself as good a driver as a fighter. He had fully recovered from his wounds and was eager to get back to Baltimore, to see service, and to find Mr. Joe. Young Tom Hopkins had started for the North to join his father. “To show him that I mean to do something to wipe out my past record,” he said. Pat would not give any credence to the belief that Joe was lost. “He’s gone off to some av thim furrin countries, an’ is lookin’ out fur prizes. He’s not lost at all, to my thinkin’,” he said. This Lettice wrote to Patsey, who was much comforted thereby. Patsey, too, had retreated from her home to a safe distance, and was with friends in Washington. She had begged Lettice to go with her, but Lettice had refused, saying that she would be better content in a quiet place, where the merry ways of her little nephew would bring her more solace than could anything else. She devoted much time to the little fellow, who grew more and more winsome every day, and was so adored by Betty’s parents that he was in danger of being spoiled.