“Very well,” Mrs. May agreed and went away regretfully. She, too, was anxious to see if the fashions had changed greatly during the years when the war had cut them off almost wholly from the rest of the world. Left to themselves the three girls contemplated the fine array of boxes and trunks, which seemed to hold an excessive amount of apparel for one young lady. “Gracious me!” exclaimed Harriot. “It’s good those two big wardrobes are in this room. You must have a dress for every day in the month.” “Wait and you’ll see what I have,” Dorothea laughed knowingly. “There are lots of things besides clothes. I had to be very careful about my packing.” “Why?” demanded the practical Harriot. “Because the Union army wanted to be sure I wasn’t carrying anything down here that would be useful,” Dorothea explained. “They examine everything, of course. I suspected it would be like the customs house business in Europe, so I prepared.” “And did they dare to search through everything?” demanded April indignantly. “No, not _everything_,” Dorothea answered with a significant emphasis on the last word. “The man who was detailed to look over my luggage was awfully nice. He asked me at once if I had anything in my boxes that would give ‘aid or comfort to the enemy’ and I said, ‘No, sir! because I don’t call an aunt or a cousin an enemy, do you?’ He laughed and remarked he’d heard of those ‘as was enemies and those as wasn’t’; but when I told him I came from England, he looked at all my traps, shook his head and let them go through without much bother. As a matter of fact he fastened bands of white muslin on them with dabs of red sealing-wax to show they were ‘passed packages’—and you know I was just a little disappointed.” “But why?” demanded Harriot. “If he let them through without mussing everything, I should think you would have been glad.” “Oh! but I’d packed them so carefully,” Dorothea answered with a knowing smile. “Come, let’s have a look—but you’ll be careful, won’t you?” All three set to work but they had not gone far when Dorothea had to repeat her warning. “Look out for that. Cousin April,” she said, as the older girl took a tightly rolled silk parasol out of the trunk. “It’s mighty pretty,” April remarked, looking at it curiously, “but not very perishable. I don’t see why I need be ’specially careful of it.” “Open it over the bed,” Dorothea advised, and, when her suggestion was followed, a shower of pills fell out. “Oh!” cried April and Harriot in one breath. “You hid contraband in it. What are these, Dorothea?” “Opium pills!” was the answer. “I read in the papers that the poor Southern soldiers had little to stop the pain of their wounds, so I brought as much as I could. It isn’t very easy to get in Washington, though I sent to a lot of chemists’ shops so I wouldn’t be suspected.”