“Yas, suh,” returned the old nurse, with a quizzical look out of her black eyes at the slender boy before her. “Dey suah does need men,” she continued, and as the youngster took a passionate step toward her, she deftly passed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and he could hear her ponderous footsteps slowly and heavily mounting the steps. The boy went to the window again and stared into the night. In his preoccupation he did not catch the sound of a gentler footfall upon the stairs, nor did he notice the opening of the door and the silent approach of a woman, the woman with white hair who had stood at the window. The mother of a son dead, a son dying, and a son living. No distinctive thing that in the Confederacy. Almost any mother who had more than one boy could have been justly so characterised. She stopped half-way down the room and looked lovingly and longingly at the slight, graceful figure of her youngest son. Her eyes filled with tears—for the dying or the living or both? Who can say? She went toward him, laid her hand on his shoulder. He turned instantly and at the sight of her tears burst out quickly: “Howard isn’t worse, is he?” for a moment forgetful of all else. The woman shook her head. “I am afraid he is. The sound of that passing battery seemed to excite him so. He thought he was at the front again and wanted to get up.” “Poor old Howard!” “He’s quieter now, perhaps——” “Mother, is there anything I can do for him?” “No, my son,” answered the woman with a sigh, “I don’t think there is anything that anybody can do. We can only wait—and hope. He is in God’s hands, not ours.” She lifted her face for a moment and saw beyond the room, through the night, and beyond the stars a Presence Divine, to Whom thousands of other women in that dying Confederacy made daily, hourly, and momentary prayers. Less exalted, more human, less touched, the boy bowed his head, not without his own prayer, too. “But you wanted to see me, Wilfred, Martha said,” the woman presently began. “Yes, mother, I——” The boy stopped and the woman was in no hurry to press him. She divined what was coming and would fain have avoided it all. “I am thankful there is a lull in the cannonading,” she said, listening. “I wonder why it has stopped?” “It has not stopped,” said Wilfred, “at least it has gone on all evening.” “I don’t hear it now.” “No, but you will—there!” “Yes, but compared to what it was yesterday—you know how it shook the house—and Howard suffered so through it.” “So did I,” said the boy in a low voice fraught with passion. “You, my son?” “Yes, mother, when I hear those guns and know that the fighting is going on, it fairly maddens me——” But Mrs. Varney hastily interrupted her boy. Woman-like she would thrust from her the decision which she knew would be imposed upon her.