"Didn't I tell you in my last letter? Prince John was killed in a fight we had on the Warwick River.... Jeames is in Richmond down with fever. He cried to come, but the doctor said he mustn't. I've only three days myself. Furloughs are hard to get, but just now the government will do anything for anybody who was on the Merrimac--You're worn yourself, Judith, and your eyes are so big and dark!--Is it Maury Stafford or Richard Cleave?" Amid the leaping of the dogs they reached the gravelled space before the house. Miss Lucy folded her nephew in her arms. "God bless you, Edward--" She held him off and looked at him. "I never saw it before--but you're like your grandfather, my dear; you're like my dear father!--O child, how thin you are!" Unity and Molly hung upon him. "The papers told us that you were on the Merrimac--though we don't know how you got there! Did you come from Richmond? Have you seen father?" "Yes, for a few moments. He has come up from the south with General Lee. General Lee is to be commander of all the forces of the Confederacy. Father is well. He sent his dear love to you all. I saw Fauquier, too--" Mammy met him at the top of the steps. "Oh, my lamb! O glory hallelujah! What you doin' wid dem worn-out close? An' yo' sh'ut tohn dat-er-way? What dey been doin' ter you--dat's what I wants ter know? My po' lamb!--Marse Edward, don' you laugh kaze mammy done fergit you ain' er baby still--" Edward hugged her. "One night in the trenches, not long ago, I swear I heard you singing, mammy! I couldn't sleep. And at last I said, 'I'll put my head in mammy's lap, and she'll sing me The Buzzards and the Butterflies-- and I'll go to sleep.' I did it, and I went off like a baby--Well, Julius, and how are you?" Within the parlour there were explanations, ejaculations, questions, and answers. "So short a furlough--when we have not seen you for almost a year! Never mind--of course, you must get back. We'll have a little party for you to-morrow night. Oh, how brown you are, and your uniform's so ragged! Never mind--we've got a bolt of Confederate cloth and Johnny Bates shall come out to-morrow.... All well. Knitting and watching, watching and knitting. The house has been full of refugees--Fairfaxes and Fauntleroys. They've gone on to Richmond, and we're alone just now. We take turn about at the hospitals in Charlottesville--there are three hundred sick--and we look after the servants and the place and the poor families whose men are gone, and we read the papers over and over, every word--and we learn letters off by heart, and we make lint, and we twist and turn and manage, and we knit and knit and wait and wait--Here's Julius with the wine! And your room's ready--fire and hot water, and young Cato to take Jeames's place. Car'line is making sugar cakes, and we shall have coffee for supper.... Hurry down, Edward, Edward _darling_!"