“Save mine till to-morrow,” Corinne answered. “Ma’s sure to want to talk to Aunt Parthenia in the morning, and I’ll come over with her.” The Stewarts and the Mays lived at opposite ends of the town so that the girls separated immediately. Harriot, thinking of corn meal poundcake, hurried to the cook-house. Perhaps because she feared to be tempted, she put Corinne’s portion out of sight at once, then munching her own share, went in search of her mother. She had not been at all impressed by the harangue she had heard at the station. That sort of speech-making was no new thing to her, and she had failed wholly to grasp the significance of what the Confederate officer had said. Nevertheless she knew that her mother would be interested in any news arriving by the train and was ready enough to report what she had heard. The town house of the May family was a spacious building. On one side of a wide hall were the parlors. On the other were the breakfast and state dining-rooms. Back of these were various offices for the administration of the estates. At each end of the dining-room, looms for homespun had been set up; for the many slaves, both in town and on the plantations, had to be clothed as well as fed. It was here that Mrs. May spent the greater portion of her days at this time of year. The spinning-wheels humming made an accompaniment to the clang of the battens; and several old colored women, wearing gay bandanas, bent their heads over a basket of cotton which had just been brought in. Aunt Decent’s daughter Isabel was busily carding and near the great fire-place Jim’s Jimmy was standing. It was his business to keep the fire going, and the heat made the child so drowsy that he was not allowed to sit down, for fear he would fall sound asleep and tumble into the flames. As Harriot entered the room, Mrs. May stepped back and forth following her thread before the loom, with a slow grace that brought to mind pictures of stately minuets that might have been danced in years past upon the very floor over which she moved so lightly. “You’re just in time, my dear,” she called, catching sight of Harriot. “I need some one to reel thread into hanks for me.” Harriot set to work willingly. “I’ve just come back from the dêpot,” she began, once the task was well started. “There were a lot of people there to-day.” “What news did you hear?” asked Mrs. May. “Oh, nothing much,” Harriot replied. “There was an officer made a speech about birds in cages and freedom and France. He was wounded in the arm, but people didn’t seem to care about what he said. At least they didn’t cheer nearly as much as I’ve heard sometimes.” “Was it about the fighting?” Mrs. May’s tone was anxious, for she had both a husband and a son in the Confederate army. “No,” drawled Harriot, “it wasn’t interesting. It was all about old Abe Lincoln and a Proclam—”