We made small appeal for sympathy or aid; were too much inclined to the reverse course, carrying poverty and other troubles with a stiff-neck, scantily-clad backs, long-suffering stomachs, and pride and conscience resolved. But--though some form of what we considered oppression was continually before our eyes--our conquerors, when in our midst, were more and more won to pity and then to sympathy. Our commandants might be stern enough when first they came, but when they had lived among us a little while, they softened and saw things in a new light; and the negroes and the carpet-baggers complained of them every one, and the authorities at Washington could not change them fast enough. Southerners here and in other cities who had Federal boarders were considered fortunate because of the money and protection secured. In such cases, there was usually mutual kindness and consideration, politeness keeping in the background topics on which differences were cruel and sharp; but the sectional dividing lines prevented free social intermingling. In places garrisoned by soldiers of coarser types and commanded by men less gentlemanly, women sometimes displayed more pronounced disapprobation. Not always with just occasion, but, again, often with cause only too grave. At the best, it was not pleasant to have strange men sauntering, uninvited, into one's yard and through one's house, invading one's kitchen and entertaining housemaids and cooks. That these men wore blue uniforms was unfortunate for us and for the uniform. At that time, the very sight of "army blue" brought terror, anguish and resentment. Our famous physicians, Maguire and McCaw, were often called to the Northern sick. Dr. McCaw came once direct to Uncle Randolph from the Dents, where he had been summoned to Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, and Matoaca listened curiously to his and her uncle's cordial discussion of General Grant, who had made friends at the South by his course at Appomattox and his insistence on the cartel. A conversation occurring between another of our physicians and a feminine patient is not without significance. The lady and the doctor's wife had been friends before the war. "Why has your wife not called upon me, Doctor?" she asked. "Has she forgotten me?" "No, ma'am," he answered gently, and then in a low, kindly voice: "But she cannot--yet--forget all that has happened since you were girls together." "But she should not treasure it against me individually." "She does not, ma'am. But she cannot forget--yet. You would understand if you had been in the beleagured land. If the good women of the North could only imagine themselves in the place of the women of the South during the last four years and in their place now!" She sighed. "I can see only too plainly that they have suffered unutterably many things that we have been spared. And that they suffer now. It's natural, too, that they should hate to have us here lording it over them."