Soon after my marriage my brother-in-law moved to Baltimore, and my mother decided to go with Milicent and her little boy. I had never really been separated from them before; I was only seventeen, a spoiled child, but though I loved them dearly, after the first I scarcely missed them. I had my husband, and ah! how happy we were--how glad we both were that I had met Dan Grey! We did not go to housekeeping at once. In the first place, I did not know anything about housekeeping and I didn’t want Dan to find it out; in the second place, we wanted to look around before we settled upon a house; and in the third, and what was to me the smallest place, the country was in a very unsettled condition. The question of State’s rights and secession was being pressed home to Virginia. The correspondence between the commission at Washington and Mr. Seward was despatched to Richmond, and Richmond is but twenty miles from Petersburg. There were mutterings that each day grew louder, signs and portents that we refused to believe. Local militia were organizing and drilling--getting ready to answer the call should it come. Not that the people seriously thought that it would come. They believed, as they hoped, that something would be done to prevent war; that statesmen, North and South, would combine to save the Union; that, at any rate, we should be saved from bloodshed. As for those others who prophesied and prayed for it, who wanted the vials of God’s wrath uncorked, they got what they wanted. Their prayers were answered; the land was drenched in blood. But for the most of us--the Virginians whom I knew--we did not, we would not believe that brothers could war with brothers. Then something happened that drove the truth home to our hearts. The guns of Sumter spoke--war was upon us. But not for long; the differences would be adjusted. Sumter fell, Virginia seceded. Still we befooled ourselves. There would be a brief campaign, victory, and peace. North and South, we looked for anything but what came--those four long years of bloody agony; North and South were each sure of victory. In Virginia, where the courage and endurance of starving men were to stand the test of weary months and years, we scoffed at the idea that there would be any real fighting. If there should be, for Virginia who had never known the shadow of defeat, defeat was impossible. One day my brother-in-law, Dick, walked in. “I’ve come to tell you good-by, Nell--I’m off to-morrow.” “Where?” “Norfolk.” “What for?” “Infantry ordered there. The Rifles go down to-night, the Grays to-morrow.” I looked serious, and Dick laughed. “Don’t bother, Nell, we’ll be back in a few days. There won’t be any fighting.” Dick was a good-looking fellow, and I liked him much better than I had once said I did. He was the dandy of the family, and on the present occasion was glorious in a new uniform. “Dick,” I said, “please don’t get in a fight and get shot.”