Whereupon, that gentlest, yet finest, of disciplinarians, who would have sent one of her own bairns to bed in the middle of the day, for an offence one-tenth as flagrant, dropped her sewing on her lap and went off into a speechless convulsion of laughter. A chuckle of intense delight from behind her rocking-chair, and a glimpse of dancing blue eyes under her elbow, put the finishing touches to a scene so discreditable to grandmotherly ideas of domestic management, that the family refused to believe the story told at the supper-table, when the culprit was safe in his crib. Leaving the dishonored “tile” to the merciful manipulations of the laundress, who begged me to “keep the pore young gentleman a-talkin’ ‘tell she could dry it at the fire,” I went to meet the unsuspecting victim. It was not difficult to keep him talking, when once he was launched upon the topic paramount in the mind of what he denominated as “every truly loyal and chivalrous Son of the South.” He had a plan of campaign so well concerted and so thoroughly digested, that it could have but one culmination. “But why Faneuil Hall?” I demurred, plaintively. “You are the sixth man who has informed me that your cavalry are to tie and feed their horses there. Why not the City Hall in New York? There must be stable-room short of Boston.” He flushed brick-red. “It is no laughing matter to us who have been ground down so long under the iron heels of Yankee mud-sills!” I found his mixed metaphors so diverting that I was near forgetting the ruined head-piece, and the inexorable necessity of confession. Sobering under the thought, I let him go on, lending but half an ear, yet, in seeming, bowed by the weight of his discourse. Moved by my mournful silence, he stopped midway. “I beg your pardon if my feelings and patriotism have carried me too far. I own that I am hot-headed—” Another such chance would not come in a life-time. I broke his sentence short. “Oh, I am glad to know that! For my boy has filled your hat with iced water!” _Eheu!_ That night’s supper was the last merry meal the old home was to know for many a long month and year. For, by breakfast-time next day, the news had come of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and men’s hearts were hot within them, and women’s hearts were failing them for fear of battle, murder, and sudden death to sons, husbands, and brothers. One might have fancied that a visible pall hung over the city, so universal and deep was the agony of suspense. While the recollection of suspense and agony was fresh in my mind, I wrote of the awful awakening from my fool’s paradise of incredulity and levity: