“I know. It’s trotting around so much. There’s where it is. When people gets to be past their prime, sez I, they ought to take care of what’s left of them, sez I. ‘Dancing bears,’ sez I, ‘must pay for their airs,’ sez I.” “What sort of a time have you had since the war began, Miss Sibby?” inquired the old salt, with a view to take the visitor off dangerous ground. But he “fell from the frying pan into the fire.” The old lady’s face flushed, and her eyes snapped. “Don’t ask me what sort of a time I’ve had! Old Scratch’s own time! What with being raided by first one party and then another, I have hardly a sheep or a pig or a duck or a hen left on the place. And what with being called a rebel by the Unioners and a traitor by the Confederers, I have hardly a morsel of self-respect or Christian charity left in my heart. And I haven’t a bit of respect for either party—not I! Clapper-clawing each other like a pack o’ wild cats for nothing in this world, as I can see, ’less it is because they haven’t got no furriners to clapper-claw. If free people can’t live peaceable in a free, healthy, plentiful country, sez I, the sooner they get the Turkey of Constantinople to rule over them the better, sez I.” “You seem to be excited, Miss Sibby.” “So would you be excited if you had suffered all that I have. First comes the Unioners and carries off all my pigs, and calls me a rebel because I object. And then comes the Confederers and carries off all my fowls, and calls me a traitor because I don’t see the right of it. Unioners and Confederers! I calls ’em Blue Bottle Flies and Gray Back Bugs, I do!” “Oh, Miss Sibby!” “Well, then, I do! I hain’t no patience with neither party! A cutting and a slashing at each other like Injuns! Only last week a lot of Blue Bottles come riding up and searched the house after a spy—as if I would harbor a spy!—and after eating up and drinking up everything in the house, and putting me in fear of my life, they mounted and rode away, telling me ‘to take care of myself’! ‘Take care of myself,’ indeed; after scaring me almost to death.” “Oh, Miss Sibby! I am afraid you are no——” Whatever he was going to say was cut short by the sudden opening of the door, and the reëntrance of Odalite Force, escorting Mrs. Hedge and Miss Grandiere. “You here, Miss Sibby?” exclaimed the three ladies, in a breath. “What the Blue Bottles and the Gray Backs has left of me is here, as you see,” replied Miss Bayard, rising to receive the welcome of the new arrivals. “And now, Sam, my boy, we will go out hunting lodgings; and if we can’t find them in the city we will even go a little way into the country,” said the old skipper, as he arose and bowed himself out of the room, followed by his nephew. When they had gone, Lord Enderby, who had been left out of the talk, now fancied himself out of place. So he likewise arose and bowed himself out.