"Why, Suwanee, I did not mean to insult him. You have transfixed him with a dozen shafts of satire to-day, and as for poor Surgeon McAllister--" "That was to their faces," interrupted Suwanee, hastily. "Suwanee is right," said Mrs. Barkdale, smiling. "Captain Lane has had the sense to see that my little girl is good-hearted in spite of her nonsense." The girl's lip was quivering but she concealed the fact by savagely biting off her thread, and then was impassive again. "I sincerely regret with you both," resumed their mother, "that these two gentlemen must go from our home to prison, especially so since receiving a letter from Captain Lane, couched in terms of the strongest respect and courtesy, and enclosing a hundred dollars in Northern money as a slight compensation--so he phrased it--for what had been done for his men. Of course he meant to include himself and the surgeon, but had too much delicacy to mention the fact. He also stated that he would have sent more, but that it was nearly all they had." "You did not keep the money!" exclaimed the two girls in the same breath. "I do not intend to keep it," said the lady, quietly, "and shall hand it back to him with suitable acknowledgments. I only mention the fact to convince Roberta that Captain Lane is not the typical Yankee, and we have much reason to be thankful that men of a different stamp were not quartered upon us. And yet," continued the matron, with a deep sigh, "you little know how sorely we need the money. Your father's and brothers' pay is losing its purchasing power. The people about here all profess to be very hot for the South, but when you come to buy anything from them what they call 'Linkum money' goes ten times as far. We have never known anything but profusion, but now we are on the verge of poverty." "Oh, well," said Suwanee, recklessly, "starving isn't the worst thing that could happen." "Alas! my child, you can't realize what poverty means. Your heart is as free from care as the birds around us, and, like them, you think you will be provided for." The girl sprung up with a ringing laugh, and kissed her mother as she exclaimed, "I'll cut off my hair, put on one of brother Bob's old suits, and enlist;" and then she left the room.