The great city had grown used to the war. There were few signs in its busy streets that a pall hung over the borders of the South. The music teacher on her rounds saw nothing save now and then the ranks of a regiment passing through on its way to a train. Traffic went on unchanged; pleasure was rampant as ever. The shrill voice of the newsboy calling the details of the last battle was often the only reminder of the dread reality. May moved onward. The Scheffels began to make those little excursions into the country so dear to the German heart; but they could not persuade the honored Fräulein to accompany them. For it was not the real country to which they went, but only that suburban imitation of it which thrives in the neighborhood of New York, and Anne's heart was back on her island in the cool blue Northern straits. Miss Lois was now at home again, and her letters were like a breath of life to the homesick girl. Little André was better, and Père Michaux came often to the church-house, and seemed glad to be with them again. With them again! If she could but be with them too!--stand on the heights among the beckoning larches, walk through the spicy aisles of the arbor vitæ, sit under the gray old pines, listening to the wash of the cool blue water below, at rest, afar, afar from all this weariness and sadness and pain! During these days Stonewall Jackson was making one of his brilliant campaigns in the Valley, the Valley of Virginia, the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. On the last morning in May, while reading the war news, Anne found in one corner a little list of dead. And there, in small letters, which grew to great size, and inscribed themselves on the walls of the room, one succeeding the other like a horrible dream, was the name, Ward Heathcote. "Captain Ward Heathcote,---- New York Volunteers." She turned the sheet; it was repeated in the latest news column, and again in a notice on the local page. "Captain Ward Heathcote,---- New York Volunteers, is reported among the slain," followed by those brief items of birth, age, and general history which appall our eyes when we first behold them on the printed page, and realize that they are now public property, since they belong only to the dead. It was early. She was at home in the half-house. She rose, put on her bonnet and gloves, walked to the station, took the first train to the city, and went to Helen. She reached the house, and was denied entrance. Mrs. Heathcote could see no one. Was any one with her? Miss Teller?