The large rooms were half full of members of the society. In those days the infinite resources of the "ready-made" had not penetrated to these regions, and doubtless the work of such eager and industrious coteries carried comfort and help farther than one can readily imagine, and the organized aid of woman's needle was an appreciable blessing. Two or three matrons, with that wise, capable look of the able house-sovereign, when scissors, or a dish, or a vial of medicine is in hand, sat with broad "lapboards" across their knees, and cut and cut the coarse garments with the skill of experts, till great piles were lying on the floor, caught up with a stitch to hold component parts together and passed on to the younger ladies at the sewing-machines that whirred and whirred like the droning bees forever at the jessamine blooming about the windows. Nothing could be more unbeautiful or uninviting than the aspect of these stout garments, unless it were to the half-clad soldier in the trenches to whom they came like an embodied benediction. The thought of him--that unknown, unnamed beneficiary, for whose grisly needs they wrought--was often, perhaps, in the mind of each. "And oh!" cried Adelaide, "while I'm pickin' lint for this hospital, I dust know some little girl away out yonder in the Confederacy is pickin' lint too--an' if my papa was to get wounded, they'd have plenty." "Pickin' fast, she is, like us!" cried the hastening Geraldine. The deft-fingered mute, discerning their meaning by the motion of their lips, redoubled her speed. Others were sewing by hand, and one very old lady had knitted some lamb's wool socks, which were passed about and greatly admired; she was complacent, almost coquettish, so bland was her smile under these compliments. And into this scene of placid and almost pious labor came Miss Mildred Fisher presently, leading her "dancing bear." If there were any question of the acceptability of the enforced presence of a Yankee officer, either in the mind of the Sewing-Circle or Lieutenant Seymour, it was not allowed to smoulder in discomfort, but set ablaze to burn itself out. "I know you are all just perfectly amazed at our assurance in bringing a Yankee officer here,--_don't_ be mortified, Lieutenant Seymour,--but mamma wouldn't hear of coming without a valiant man-at-arms as an escort, so I begged and prayed him to come, and now I want you all to beg and pray him to stay!"