Judge Roscoe's ready tact mitigated the stress of the situation. "Leonora," he said, "you look like the spring! That combination of sky-blue and peach-blow was always a favorite with your aunt,--French taste, she called it. It seems to me that the dyes of dress goods were more delicate then than now; that is not something new, is it?" "Oh, no; a worn-out thing, as old as the hills!" she answered casually. And so the subject dropped. It was renewed in a different quarter. Old Ephraim was sitting on the floor in the garret, while his young master, adroitly balanced in a crazy arm-chair with three legs, was scraping with a spoon the bottom of the bowl that had contained "the forage." Julius made these meals as long as he dared, so yearning he was for the news of the dear home life below, so tantalized by its propinquity and yet its remoteness. He was barred from it by his peril and the presence of the Federal officer as if he were a thousand miles away. But old Ephraim came freshly from its scenes; from the table that he served, around which the familiar faces were grouped; from the fireside he replenished, musical with the voices that Julius loved. He caught a glimpse, he heard an echo, through the old gossip's talk, and thus the symposium was prolonged. The old negro told the neighborhood news as well; who was dead, and how and why they died; who was married, and how and when this occurred; what ladies "received Yankee officers," for some there were who put off and on their political prejudices as easily as an old glove; what homes had been seized for military purposes or destroyed by the operations of war. "De Yankees built a fote on Marse Frank Devrett's hill," he remarked of the home of a relative of the Roscoes. "Which side," demanded the boy; "toward the river?" "Todes de souf." "Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon. "You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!" "'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant. "Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping Spring road, and here runs the turnpike. Now here is the rise of the hill, and--" "Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography. "And here is the bend of the river,"--the bowl of the spoon made a great swirl to imply the broad sweep of the noble Tennessee. "Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments." "I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for embarkation." "An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de bresh--"