"I'd risk ten times more to hear your dear voice again--" with a rib-cracking hug--"only think, father, it's more than two years now since I have seen you! I want to see Leonora ten minutes and kiss the 'ladies,' and then I'm off again in a day or so, and none the wiser." "No, no, that is out of the question! No one must know. The camps are too close; you must have seen them, even in the grove." "Why, I can lie low." "And there is a--" Judge Roscoe hardly knew how to voice it--"a--a Yankee officer in the house." "Thunderation! The dickens there is! Why--" "There is no time to explain; you must go back at once, while the Federal pickets are so close, and you can slip through the line. It's just at the creek." "But they have thrown it out since dark, five miles. Our fellows skedaddled back to their support. And I tell you it will never do for me to be caught inside the lines. The Yankees might think I was spying around!" Judge Roscoe turned faint and sick. Then, rising to the emergency, and considering the suspicions the sound of voices here at this hour of the night might excite in the mind of the sentry, he grasped his son's arm, with a warning clutch imposing silence, and led him along the dark hall, groping up the staircase. As the boy was about to bolt in the direction of his former chamber, his father turned the corner to the second flight. "Sky parlor, is it?" the young daredevil muttered, as they stumbled together up the steep ascent to the garret. A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his ancient physique.