"Do you mean that he has deserted us?" she cried. "That he has left us here defenceless,--at the mercy of the Dutch, that they may wreak their vengeance upon us women? How can you sit still, Virginia? If I were your age and able to drag myself to the street, I should be at the Arsenal now. I should be on my knees before that detestable Captain Lyon, even if he is a Yankee." Virginia kept her temper. "I do not go on my knees to any man," she said. "Rosetta, tell Ned I wish the carriage at once." Her aunt seized her convulsively by the arm. "Where are you going, Jinny?" she demanded. "Your Pa would never forgive me if anything happened to you." A smile, half pity, crossed the girl's anxious face. "I am afraid that I must risk adding to your misfortune, Aunt Lillian," she said, and left the room. Virginia drove to Mr. Brinsmade's. His was one of the Union houses which she might visit and not lose her self respect. Like many Southerners, when it became a question of go or stay, Mr. Brinsmade's unfaltering love for the Union had kept him in. He had voted for Mr. Bell, and later had presided at Crittenden Compromise meetings. In short, as a man of peace, he would have been willing to sacrifice much for peace. And now that it was to be war, and he had taken his stand uncompromisingly with the Union, the neighbors whom he had befriended for so many years could not bring themselves to regard him as an enemy. He never hurt their feelings; and almost as soon as the war began he set about that work which has been done by self-denying Christians of all ages,--the relief of suffering. He visited with comfort the widow and the fatherless, and many a night in the hospital he sat through beside the dying, Yankee and Rebel alike, and wrote their last letters home. And Yankee and Rebel alike sought his help and counsel in time of perplexity or trouble, rather than hotheaded advice from their own leaders. Mr. Brinsmade's own carriage was drawn up at his door; and that gentleman himself standing on the threshold. He came down his steps bareheaded in the wet to hand Virginia from her carriage. Courteous and kind as ever, he asked for her father and her aunt as he led her into the house. However such men may try to hide their own trials under a cheerful mien, they do not succeed with spirits of a kindred nature. With the others, who are less generous, it matters not. Virginia was not so thoughtless nor so selfish that she could not perceive that a trouble had come to this good man. Absorbed as she was in her own affairs, she forgot some of them in his presence. The fire left her tongue, and to him she could not have spoken harshly even of an enemy. Such was her state of mind, when she was led into the drawing-room. From the corner of it Anne arose and came forward to throw her arms around her friend. "Jinny, it was so good of you to come. You don't, hate me?" "Hate you, Anne dear!"