"Well, sir," said the more communicative one, after a moment's contemplation, "I never expected to see this!" He indicated by a gesture the stupendous life of Broadway beginning slowly to roll back upon itself like an obstructed river. It was obviously gathering in a general pause to concentrate its attention upon something of leading interest about to appear to view. "We're in earnest at last, and we can see, now, that the South was in the deadest kind of earnest from the word go." "They can't be any more in earnest than we are, now," said the more decided speaker. "I had great hopes of the peace convention," said the rosier man. "I never had a bit," responded the other. "The suspense was awful--waiting to know what Lincoln would do when he came in," said he of the poor chin. "My wife was in the South visiting her relatives; and we kept putting off her return, hoping for a quieter state of affairs--hoping and putting off--till first thing you knew the lines closed down and she had the hardest kind of a job to get through." "I never had a doubt as to what Lincoln would do," said the man with sharp eyes; but while he spoke he covertly rubbed his companion's elbow with his own, and by his glance toward the younger of the two women gave him to understand that, though her face was partly turned away, the very pretty ear, with no ear-ring in the hole pierced for it, was listening. And the readier speaker rejoined in a suppressed voice:-- "That's the little lady I travelled in the same car with all the way from Chicago." "No times for ladies to be travelling alone," muttered the other. "She hoped to take a steam-ship for New Orleans, to join her husband there." "Some rebel fellow, I suppose." "No, a Union man, she says." "Oh, of course!" said the sharp-eyed one, sceptically. "Well, she's missed it. The last steamer's gone and may get back or may not." He looked at her again, narrowly, from behind his companion's shoulder. She was stooping slightly toward the child, rearranging some tie under its lifted chin and answering its questions in what seemed a chastened voice. He murmured to his fellow, "How do you know she isn't a spy?" The other one turned upon him a look of pure amusement, but, seeing the set lips and earnest eye of his companion, said softly, with a faint, scouting hiss and smile:-- "She's a perfect lady--a perfect one." "Her friend isn't," said the aggressive man.