Neville’s letters, as affectionate as ever, came regularly, for the mails with the North were not yet interrupted. These letters were brief. Neville had not Richard’s powers of language; he was distinctively a man of action, but he expressed himself with simplicity and vigor which is the embodiment of the best eloquence. Once a week Angela received from him a letter full of affection. It was a model love letter, quite beyond the power of the professedly accomplished letter writer. Angela read it with a blush not of pleasure but of that secret discomfort of which she was ashamed and actually afraid, and at this thought the discomfort increased. “Did ever any girl before feel as she did when receiving her lover’s letters?” she asked herself. On the assembling of the convention Richard Tremaine left Harrowby for Richmond. As soon as the body assembled, the result of its deliberations were easily foreseen and from that day the whole of Virginia became a great camp of instruction. The initial steps were taken toward the organization of regiments. The women were not a whit behind in their eagerness to begin the work of equipping hospitals, of furnishing the soldiers with stockings and other comforts, and of raising funds for the presentation of flags to the different companies. Mrs. Tremaine, the soul of modesty and retirement, was the chief mover in all these plans and was ably seconded by Mrs. Charteris. The men were fiercely determined; the women were more fiercely indomitable. Colonel Tremaine at seventy-two and much troubled with rheumatism was full of military ardor, and proposed to take the field with Hector as soon as Virginia seceded. Hector did not receive this proposition with unalloyed delight, and argued with Colonel Tremaine. “Ole Marse, you got de rheumatiz an’ I got de ager an’ we cyarn’ do much fightin’ when you is cussin’ de rheumatiz an’ my teef is rattlin’ wid de ager.” “With cowardice, you mean, you black scoundrel,” answered Colonel Tremaine, who spoke his mind freely to Hector, although by no means allowing anyone else so great a liberty. “When I had you in Mexico, by gad, you had the ague every time you got within ten miles of a Mexican and you would run like a rabbit at the sight of a green uniform.” “Good Gord A’might’, Marse! You done forgot----” “No, I haven’t, sirrah, but when we go to fight the Yankees, I shall make it a point to keep you within ten feet of me whenever we are under fire.” As Colonel Tremaine was utterly insensible to fear, as Hector knew by sad experience, and bowed and scraped and flourished exactly the same when bullets were whistling around his head as when asking a lady to dance the Virginia reel, Hector was appalled at the prospect.