“Then I won't have any further use for this--thing?” indicating the pass, which she received back with fine loathing, as if it were something infectious. “No'm.” “Quite sure?” “Yes'm, quite sure.” She rode over to the fire around which part of the guard were sitting, held the pass over it by the extremest tips of her dainty thumb and forefinger, and then dropped it upon the coals, as if it were a rag from a small-pox hospital. Glancing at her finger-tips an instant, as if they had been permanently contaminated by the scrawl of the Yankee General, she touched her nag, and was off like an arrow without so much as good day to the guards. “She-cesh--clean to her blessed little toe-nails,” said the Sergeant, gazing after her meditatively, as he fished around in his pouch for a handful of Kinnikinnick, to replenish his pipe, “and she's purtier'n a picture, too.” “Them's the kind that's always the wust Rebels,” said the oracle of the squad, from his seat by the fire. “I'll bet she's just loaded down with information or ouinine. Mebbe both.” She was now fairly in the enemy's country, and her heart beat faster in momentary expectation of encountering some form of the perils abounding there. But she became calm, almost joyous, as she passed through mile after mile of tranquil landscape. The war might as well have been on the other side of the Atlantic for any hint she now saw of it in the peaceful, sun-lit fields and woods, and streams of crystal spring-water. She saw women busily engaged in their morning work about all the cabins and houses. With bare and sinewy arms they beat up and down in tiresomely monotonous stroke the long-handled dashers of cedar churns standing in the wide, open “entries” of the “double-houses;” they arrayed their well-scalded milk crocks and jars where the sun's rays would still further sweeten them; they plied swift shuttles in the weaving sheds; they toiled over great, hemispherical kettles of dye-stuffs or soap, swinging from poles over open fires in the yard; they spread out long webs of jeans and linen on the grass to dry or bleach, and all the while they sang--sang the measured rhythm of familiar hymns in the high soprano of white women--sang wild, plaintive lyrics in the liquid contralto of negresses. Men were repairing fences, and doing other Winter work in the fields, and from the woods came the ringing staccato of choppers. She met on the road leisurely-traveling negro women, who louted low to her, and then as she passed, turn to gaze after her with feminine analysis and admiration for every detail of her attire. Then came “Uncle Tom” looking men, driving wagons loaded with newly-riven rails, breathing the virile pungency of freshly-cut oak. Occasionally an old white man or woman rode by, greeting her with a courteous “Howdy?”