“Miriam, do you not think of Richard? Do you not love Richard?” “Of course I love Richard. But you’re thinking of him all the time! Will’s only got me to think of him.” “Miriam!” Miriam began to shudder. Dry-eyed, a carnation spot in each cheek, she sat staring at the dusty roadside, her slight figure shaking. Her mother leaned across and gathered her into her arms. “O child, child! O third of my children! The one dead, and another perhaps dying or dead, at this moment, and in trouble, with a hidden name—and you, my littlest one, tearing with your hands at your own heart and at mine! And the country.... All our men and women, the warring and the warred upon.... And the world that wheels so blindly—all, all upon one’s heart! It is a deal to think on, in the dead of night—” “I don’t mean to be hard and wicked,” said Miriam. “I don’t know what is the matter with me. I am mad, I think. I remember that night after the Botetourt Resolutions you said that war was a Cup of Trembling. I didn’t believe you then.—I don’t believe we’re going to find a sheet of letter-paper in town, or shoes or flannel either.” There were three stores in town and the Three Oaks’ carriage stopped before each. A blast had passed over the country stores as over the country fields, a sweeping away of what was needed for the armies and a steady depletion of what was left. For three years no new stock had come to the stores, no important-looking boxes and barrels over which the storekeeper beamed, hatchet in hand, around which gathered the expectant small fry. All the gay calicoes were gone, all the bright harness and cutlery. China had departed from the shelves, and all linen and straw bonnets and bright wool. The glass showcases, once the marvel and delight of childish eyes, were barren of ribbons and “fancy soap,” of cologne, pictured handkerchief boxes, wonderful buttons, tortoise-shell combs, and what-not. The candies were all gone from the glass jars, the “kisses” and peppermint stick. There were no loaves of sugar in their blue paper. There was little of anything, very little, indeed,—and the merchant could not say as of old, “Just out, madam!—but my new stock is on the way.” They found at last a quire or two of dusty foolscap, paid thirty dollars for it, and thought the price reasonable. Shoes were not to be discovered—“any more than the North Pole!” said the small old man who waited upon them. “Yes, Mrs. Cleave; it’s going to be an awful thing, this winter!” They bought a few yards of flannel, and paid twenty dollars the yard; a few coarse handkerchiefs, and paid three dollars apiece for them; a pound of tea, and paid for it twenty-five dollars. When at last Tullius tucked their purchases into corners of the carriage, they had expended five hundred dollars in bright, clean, handsome Confederate notes.