“Bless you, yes; and down our way——Whew! Why, as far back as last Christmas, when our Virginia boys, who were at college in Washington, came home for the holidays, they made their boast that when they went back to Washington it would be behind the ‘red-cross’ banner (whatever in the deuce’s name that might be), to the sound of drum and bugle, and with swords and muskets to take the city. Bosh! I let the lads talk. I didn’t even think it even worth while to contradict them. I only thought they were a little more inflated with gas than ever college boys usually are, and I considered their blowing it off a necessary process.” “I heard the talk of Secessionists very much in the same spirit. I could not believe it real,” said the doctor. “Yes; but the jest has become very serious now. The madness has spread, and is spreading. Our neighborhood is a regular hotbed of secession. A few weeks ago I had occasion to go to Winchester with my two brothers. It was a lawsuit that took us there. In fact, we were subpœnaed as witnesses in the great case of Trowbridge _versus_ Kay, and we had to go, and the case detained us there more than a fortnight. I will just observe here that on our road to Winchester we noticed at every public house, post office, blacksmith and country store, and at ever so many private houses, banners raised, and bearing such mottoes as these: ‘Secession;’ ‘The Southern Confederacy;’ ‘No Compromise;’ ‘State’s Rights,’ and so forth. I didn’t see one Star-Spangled Banner in the whole route! Well, meantime, you know, I left my little Elfie at home, with no one to protect her but the negroes. Bless you, I thought she was as safe as safe could be! Now you tell what happened after I went away, Elfie, for you know more about it than I do,” said the farmer, turning to his little daughter. “I knew he’d break down in the story. He’d better let me told it from the first. Well, when pap and my two unks had gone and left me alone, with the old blind mare, the cow, the pigs and the darkies, I got into mischief the first thing!” “Of course you did,” said Dr. Rosenthal, laughing. “‘When the cat’s away the mice will play!’ But what particular species of mischief did you get into?” “Ah! ‘thereby hangs a tale,’ and not a mouse’s tail neither. Well, seeing so many strange new flags flying round, I thought I would just hoist the old one, for fear people might forget its existence. The only difficulty in my way was that I hadn’t an old one to hoist.” “But mark you what she did!” exclaimed her father, proudly.