“Sherman is coming, and I am afraid he will burn Columbia. They say he is going to throw the Fifteenth Corps into the city—the corps that fills its tracks with blood and covers them with ashes. The prisoners we have taken all say so. Bessie is here alone. Will you protect her? Here,” he said, drawing from his pocket a small, ivory-handled pistol, “take this and promise me to do all to protect her, if she needs it. You may need it, too.” Then he walked out into the night and looked up to the window of the little room; Bessie was still standing with the candle in her left hand, looking lovingly down at the tiny garments spread out on the bed, and Helen was sitting in the room below, recalling the face of the past, letting the memories trip with light steps over her soul, and listening to the vibrating of the chords that had lain sore and silent for so long. It was a cozy little living room, and the wind and the rain outside only made it the cozier. Belated travelers were still hurrying home on the streets below, in the mud and rain. Every now and then one of them looked in at the window whence came the cheery rays of light and thought as he saw it of his own home and loved ones. So Helen sat, and sitting, mused. That fire, how brightly it glowed! What a world of poetry and beauty there was in it, from the deep, velvety coals to the dark, gray ashes. And that tiny, blue flame, how young it looked! That was youth. The coals in the full glow were impetuous manhood, and the dark, somber ashes told her of a life buried away, and reminded her that dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit—the bright, pure, flaming spirit, had it not already vanished into the presence of the God who gave it? Then, too, the long, dark shadows cast fitfully across the room by the irregular bursts of flames, and the occasional crackling of the good natured logs, and, yes, there surely was a cricket on the hearth. There are many Helens, and readers will see the one who sat by the fire that winter’s night in the fated city, but each looks upon his own Helen and the fire glows upon his own hearthstone. One looks at her and she at the fire, and the light falling over her is bathing her beautiful face till every feature is radiant with its divine glow, and the most fascinating tints seem to tinge each ringlet of her hair, and to sleep and dream in those dark, brown eyes. She, too, was dreaming—though none gazed at her there—of life and love, memories which only they could bring, filling her soul and steadying her nerves for life’s actions.