"My youngest son has been ill," said Margaret. "He is in the 2d. Kind friends took him home and cared for him, but Miriam and I were unhappy at Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came." "Will always was a baby," volunteered Miriam. "When the fever made him delirious and they thought he was going to die, he kept calling for mother, and sometimes he called for me. Now he's better, and the sister of a man in his mess is reading 'Kenilworth' aloud to him, and he's spoiled to death! Richard always did spoil him--" Her mother smiled. "I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is, by Richard.--When did you come to town, Major Stafford?" "Last night," answered Stafford. "From General Loring, near Monterey. I am the advance of the Army of the Northwest. We are ordered to join General Jackson, and ten days or so should see the troops in Winchester. What is going to happen then? Dear madam, I do not know!" Miriam chose to remain petulant. "General Jackson is the most dreadful martinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until they're too tired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December, and he won't let officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer meetings all the time! Ever so many people think he's crazy!" "Miriam!" "But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to be a soldier. And Will--Will would be loyal to a piece of cement out of the Virginia Military Institute! And of course the Stonewall Brigade doesn't say it, nor the Rockbridge Artillery, nor any of Ashby's men--they're soldiers, too! But I've heard the _militia_ say it--" Maury Stafford laughed. "Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that the Army of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson is--is--well, is General Jackson!--To burn our stores of subsistence, to leave unguarded the passes along a hundred miles of mountain, to abandon quarters just established, to get our sick somehow to the rear, and to come up here upon some wild winter campaign or other--all on the representation of the rather singular Commander of the Army of the Valley!" He took off his gold-braided cap, and lifted his handsome head to the breeze from the west. "But what can you do with professors of military institutes and generals with one battle to their credit? Nothing--when they have managed to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding general and the government at Richmond!--You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I should not have said that, I know. Pray forget it--and don't believe that I am given to such indiscretions!" He laughed. "There were representations which I was to make to General Jackson. Well, I made them! In point of fact, I made them but an hour ago. Hence this unbecoming temper. They were received quite in the manner of a stone wall--without comment and without removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the thing to show its nature?--Is this pleasant old house your goal?"