"If I ever have I put it from me. I do not doubt the armies nor the generals--and, God knows, I do not doubt the women at home! If I am not so sure in all ways of the government, at least no man doubts its integrity and its purpose. The President, if he is clear and narrow rather than clear and broad, if he sometimes plays the bigot, if he is a good field officer rather than the great man of affairs we need--yet he is earnest, disinterested, able, a patriot. And Congress does its best--is at least eloquent and fires the heart. Our crowding needs are great and our resources small; it does what it can. The departments work hard. Benjamin, Mallory, Randolph, Meminger--they are all good men. And the railroad men and the engineers and the chemists and the mechanics--all so wonderfully and pathetically ingenious, labouring day and night, working miracles without material, making bricks without straw. Arsenals, foundries, powder-mills, workshop, manufactories--all in a night, out of the wheat fields! And the runners of blockades, and the river steamer men, the special agents, the clerks, the workers of all kind--a territory large as Europe and every man and woman in the field in one aspect or another! If patriotism can save and ability, fortitude, endurance, we are saved. And yet I think of my old 'Plutarch's Lives,' and of all the causes that have been lost. And sometimes in the middle of the night, I see all our blocked ports--and the Mississippi, slipping from our hands. I do not believe that England will come to our help. There is a sentiment for us, undoubtedly, but like the island mists it stays at home." He rose from the table. "And yet the brave man fights and must hope. Hope is the sky above him--and the skies have never really fallen. I do not know how I will come out of war! I know how I went into it, but no man knows with what inner change he will come out. Enough now, being in, to serve with every fibre." She shaded her eyes with her hand. With her soft brown hair, with her slender maturity, with the thin fine bit of lace at her neck, against the blowing curtains and in the jasmine scent she suggested something fine and strong and sweet, of old time, of all time. "I know that you will serve with every fibre," she said. "I know it because I also shall serve that way." Presently she dropped her hand and looked up at him with a face, young, soft, and bright, lit from within. "And so at last, Richard, you are happy in the lovely ways!" He put something in her hand. "Would you like to see it? She sent it to me, two weeks ago. It does not do her justice." Margaret laughed. "They never do! But I agree with you--and yet, it is lovely! Her eyes were always wonderful, and she smiles like some old picture. I shall love her well, Richard."