"No--thank God. He has sent my mother word that for her sake and mine he'll not fight his father and younger brothers in battle. He's going to do a braver thing than march to the front. He's going to face his neighbors in New Orleans and stand squarely by his principles." "It will take a brave man to do that, won't it?" "The bravest of the brave." The train was just pulling into a sleepy Southern town, the tracks running straight down the center of its main street. A company was drawn up to salute the new President and cheering thousands had poured in from the surrounding country to do him honor. They cheered themselves hoarse and were still at it when the train slowly started northward. The company which greeted their arrival with arms presented were on board now, chatting, shouting, singing, waving their caps and handkerchiefs to tear-stained women. The country through which the Presidential party passed had been suddenly transformed into a vast military camp, the whole population war mad. Every woman from every window of every house in sight of the train waved a handkerchief. The flutter of those white flags never ceased. The city of Richmond gave their distinguished visitor a noble reception. He was quartered temporarily at the Spotswood Hotel, but the City Council had purchased the handsomest mansion in town at a cost of $40,000 and offered it to him as their token of admiration of his genius. Mr. Davis was deeply touched by this mark of esteem from Virginia, but sternly refused the gift for himself. He accepted it for the Confederate Government as the official residence of the President. Socola found the city a mere comfortable village in comparison with New York or Boston or Philadelphia, though five times the size of Montgomery. He strolled through its streets alone, wondering in which one of the big old-fashioned mansions lived the remarkable Southern woman to whom his Government had referred him for orders. He must await the arrival of the messenger who would deliver to him in person its description. In the meantime with tireless eye he was studying the physical formation of every street and alley. He must know it, every crook and turn. Until the advent of the troops Richmond had been one of the quietest of all the smaller cities of America. Barely forty thousand inhabitants, one third of whom were negro slaves, it could boast none of the displays or excitements of a metropolis. Its vices were few, its life orderly and its society the finest type of the genuine American our country had developed. Rowdyism was unknown. The police department consisted of a dozen "watchmen" whose chief duty was to round up a few straggling negroes who might be found on the streets after nine o'clock at night and put them in "the Cage" until morning. "The Cage" was a ramshackled wooden building too absurd to be honored by the name of prison.