"I think so, ma'am," replied Dr. Sevier, and tried to make his statement good. "I'm sure of it," said the lady, very sweetly and gayly, and made a faint time-to-go beckon with a fan to her husband, to whom, in the farther drawing-room, Laura and Mary stood talking, each with an arm about the other's waist. CHAPTER LXI PEACE. It came with tears. But, ah! it lifted such an awful load from the hearts even of those who loved the lost cause. Husbands snatched their wives once more to their bosoms, and the dear, brave, swarthy, rough-bearded, gray-jacketed boys were caught again in the wild arms of mothers and sisters. Everywhere there was glad, tearful kissing. Everywhere? Alas for the silent lips that remained unkissed, and the arms that remained empty! And alas for those to whom peace came too suddenly and too soon! Poor Narcisse! His salary still continues. So does his aunt. The Ristofalos came back all together. How delighted Mrs. Colonel Ristofalo--I say Mrs. _Colonel_ Ristofalo--was to see Mary! And how impossible it was, when they sat down together for a long talk, to avoid every moment coming back to the one subject of "him." "Yes, ye see, there bees thim as is _called_ col-o-nels, whin in fact they bees only _liftinent_ col-o-nels. Yes. But it's not so wid him. And he's no different from the plain Raphael Ristofalah of eight year ago--the same perfict gintleman that he was when he sold b'iled eggs!" And the colonel's "lady" smiled a gay triumph that gave Mary a new affection for her. Sister Jane bowed to the rod of an inscrutable Providence. She could not understand how the Confederacy could fail, and justice still be justice; so, without understanding, she left it all to Heaven, and clung to her faith. Her brother-in-law never recovered his fortunes nor his sweetness. He could not bend his neck to the conqueror's yoke; he went in search of liberty to Brazil--or was it Honduras? Little matter which, now, for he died there, both he and his wife, just as their faces were turning again homeward, and it was dawning upon them once more that there is no land like Dixie in all the wide world over.