“My mother is much upset over this news from England,” Corinne replied rather severely, making no move to invite them into the house. “You don’t seem to comprehend the importance of it, Harriot. What we are going to do now that the British have refused to let us fit out vessels in their ports I don’t see. You understand, don’t you, Miss Drummond?” She asked the question as if it was hardly to be expected that the youthful Harriot could appreciate so mature a matter. “Of course she understands and so do I,” Harriot answered promptly. “But we’ll get on somehow. England is not the only country in the world. You don’t suppose our great Confederacy is so easy to defeat as that, do you?” “‘Our great Confederacy!’” Corinne wailed. “They’ve insulted us by calling it the ‘so-called Confederacy,’ as if it was nothing and we hadn’t any right to it.” “I don’t think it matters what they call it,” Dorothea remarked, trying to seem sympathetic. She could not help feeling that Corinne lacked sincerity and that she was just repeating, parrot-like, what she had heard others say. “Come on, let’s go in,” Harriot said, moving toward the door. “Yes, do come in.” Corinne’s invitation was not enthusiastic, but Harriot, at least, cared nothing for that. “Ma will want to see you. She’s having a trying time making up her mind what things she ought to take with her.” “Take with her?” echoed Harriot, standing in the doorway. “Where’s she going?” “She doesn’t quite know,” Corinne returned. “Either to Mexico or Brazil. She hasn’t decided yet, but now that the South is beaten there isn’t any place in this country for ladies and gentlemen to live. At least that’s what Ma says.” “Fiddlesticks!” Harriot muttered, and marched into the house. They found Mrs. Stewart in the parlor, sewing as if her life depended upon her speed. “Harriot, my love, I’m overjoyed to see you,” she greeted her niece in a tearful voice, hardly looking up from her work. “I’m making a running bag to tie inside my hoops. I shall put my diamonds in it when I go to Mexico. I suppose your mother has everything ready to leave?” “Why, no, Aunt Cora,” Harriot replied, going over and kissing the cheek upturned for her salute. “We hadn’t heard of this English insult, but I don’t think it will make any difference to us. I’ve brought my cousin, Dorothea Drummond, to call on you.” “How do you do, my dear,” Mrs. Stewart murmured, stopping long enough to look up at Dorothea and hold out a couple of fingers. “You come among us in sad days. I don’t know when we shall start, but it can’t be long now. Do you know anything about Brazil, by any chance?” Dorothea confessed that she did not.