Early in the winter they had seen two trunks and a large picture brought to the house, but they watched in vain for the exit of the aforesaid two trunks and picture. What could it mean? They all declared Mrs. Swift too active a woman to want a housekeeper--too strong to need a nurse--too proud and too well off to have a boarder! But surely she would have to go soon, now that spring was almost upon them! And lo! one sunny spring morning, both ladies, with garden hats firmly tied on, and loose old gloves protecting their hands, were out in the garden, making life a misery and bewilderment to the harmless, nearly useless old gardener, who, doddering about, accepted their orders with a respectful misunderstanding of them that promised rare developments for the future. One thing they did, though, with their own hands. Mrs. Swift had obtained a fine, young magnolia--a gift for Mrs. Wallace. It was a pretty thought, and Mrs. Wallace accepted shrub and thought with warm gratitude. And together, with smiles, and may be a tear or two, they planted the magnolia on the lawn, and at the same time filled the souls of the neighbors with a very anguish of curiosity. When summer came, notes from a well-played piano floated from the open windows of Mrs. Swift’s house, and no matter what classic composition Mrs. Wallace might begin with, she always closed her playing with “In the Hazel Dell,” because that had been the favorite song of the young Northern soldier, and his mother loved to hear the simple, old air for his dear sake. Winter came, and the two trunks and the picture had not been removed. The neighbors had fallen into a sort of torpor. Then, one day, one rushed to the others, declaring: “They call each other by their first names! Yes, Mrs. Swift said: ‘Marion, there must be double windows for your room this winter!’ and that Southern woman answers up: ‘Oh, no, Martha, that’s not necessary!’ What do you think of that?” Evidently there was no use in watching the house, after that, for the departure of the Southern woman. During the long winter evenings, this elderly couple used to talk unceasingly of the war, and they would tell one another of this or that engagement, illustrating the positions of the troops with spools of thread, the scissors always coming handy for streams that had to be crossed. Then Mrs. Swift never tired of hearing what the war had meant to the women of the South. She wept over the burned houses, the looted property, the hunger, the make-shift for clothing, and would draw her rocker closer to Mrs. Wallace, as she told how the last precious ounces of real coffee had been hidden--as people hide gold or jewels--only to be brought forth in tiny portions for a sick or wounded soldier--told how she had cut up old garments of her husband’s to make herself shoes, and had worn skirts made from her sitting-room curtains!