The war, however, was seldom so seriously regarded at the Fisher mansion, one of the fine modern houses of the town,--brick with heavy limestone facings and much iron grille work, perched up on a double terrace, from which two flights of stone steps descended to the pavement. The more youthful officers contrived to import fruits and hothouse flowers, the fresh books and sheet music of the day, and they stood by the piano and wagged their heads to the march in "Faust," which was all the rage at that time, and sped around nimbly to the vibrations of its waltz, that might have made a pair of spurs dance. She had a very pretty wit of an exaggerated tenor, and it seemed to whet the phrase of every one who was associated with "The Fair One with the Equivocal Locks," as an imitator of her methods had dubbed her. No order was so strictly enforced as to touch her mother's and her aunt's household. Their poultry roosted in peace. Their firearms were left by officers conducting searches through citizens' houses and confiscating pistols, guns, and knives. "_We_ are as capable of armed rebellion as ever," she would declare joyously. Miss Fisher's favorite horse bore her airy weight as jauntily down the street as if no impress had desolated equestrian society. On these occasions she was always accompanied by two or three officers, sometimes more, and there was a fable in circulation that once the cavalcade was so numerous that the guard was turned out at the fort, the sentries mistaking the gayly caparisoned approach for the major general commanding the division and his mounted escort. She sang in a very high soprano voice and with a considerable degree of culture, but one may be free to say that her rendering of "Il Bacio" and "La Farfalletta" was by no means the triumph of art that it seemed to Seymour, and it was suggested to the mind of several of the elder officers that there ought to be something more arduous for him to do than to languish over the piano in a sentimental daze, fairly hypnotized by the simpler melodies--"Her bright smile haunts me still" and "Sweet Evangeline." Serious thoughts were sometimes his portion, and Vertnor Ashley now and again received the benefit of them. "I heard some news when I was in town to-day--and I don't believe it," Seymour said as he sat on a camp-stool on the grass in front of the colonel's tent.