What was Barbara's despair, on learning that all the products of her labors had been intercepted by the "Beast," and were safely stored at "these headquarters"! Mrs. Dinwiddie went into hysterics at the news, but was suddenly restored, on hearing Dinwiddie enter, and inquire in the most cold-blooded manner, "Why isn't dinner ready?" Falling upon that monster in human shape, she crushed him so far into silence by her indignation, that he was glad to make a meal of a few crackers and a glass of ale, and then retire for his afternoon cigar to the repose of his counting-room. The war (the civil, not the domestic, we mean) went on. Battle succeeded battle, and skirmish skirmish, with alternating successes, when at last came the Emancipation Proclamation, not in the earthquake, nor in the whirlwind, but in the still small voice. "Well, what of it? 'Tis a mere paper bomb!" said Belshazzar at Richmond, looking out on Libby and Belle Isle. Mrs. Dinwiddie read the "Richmond Enquirer," and thought, for the thousandth time, how intolerable life would be, if ever again Yankees were to be suffered to live within a thousand miles of a genuine descendant of the Cavaliers. "Spaniels must be whipped into subservience," said Mr. Jefferson Davis, alluding to the abhorred race north of Mason and Dixon's line. "Yes, they must be whipped!" echoed Mrs. Dinwiddie; and soon afterwards came news of the capture of New Orleans, of Vicksburg, of Port Hudson, and at last of Atlanta. "These horrid Yankees!" she shrieked. "Why don't we do something, Dinwiddie? If one Southerner can whip five Yankees, why, in the name of common sense, don't we do something? Speak, you stupid, provoking man!" "Yes, yes, what was it you asked?" meekly interrogated Dinwiddie, who was calculating how much he had made in the recent rise of United States five-twenties. "What was it? Oh, go to your tobacco-casks, your coupons, and your cotton, you soulless, huckstering old man! You can look on and see Abolitionism getting rampant in this once proud city, and not lift a voice or a finger to save us from ruin! You can see Maryland drifting into the horrible abyss of Yankeeism and Anti-slavery, and keep on doing business and minding the paltry affairs of your counting-room, as if all that gives grace and dignity to this wretched State were not on the verge of destruction! If you'd had the spirit of a hare, you'd have been a brigadier-general in the Confederate army by this time." Dinwiddie was not a man of words. He had a wholesome horror of strong-minded women; and to that class he discovered, too late for his peace, that his wife belonged. So he simply replied, slightly stuttering, as was his wont, except when excited,-- "If I had joined the army, Madam, I should have--have--ve"---- "I should have what?" "I should have been deprived of your--ahem--agreeable society; and then you might have been a wid--wid--widow."