But Chalender with that almost infallible intuition of his for escaping bad quarters-of-an-hour, sent merely a gay little note: “Dear Papa and Mamma-in-law: “It grieves me deeply to be unable to call and pay you both my filial devoirs, but I am to be shipped South at once for cannon-fodder. “Our dear Immy sent you all sorts of loving messages, which I beg you to imagine. She is well and beautiful and would be the belle of San Francisco if she were not so devoted a mother to the three perfect grandchildren, whom you have never seen. “‘When this cruel war is over,’ as the song goes, I shall hope to come tramp-tramp-tramping to your doorstep. Until then and always be assured, dear Patty and David (if I may be so familiar) that I am The most devoted of “Sons-in-law.” The next day’s paper told of his departure as the lieutenant colonel of a new regiment. Before the regiment reached the front, he was its colonel owing to the sudden demise of his superior. People died to get out of his way! The next they knew he was shot in the throat as he led a magnificent and successful charge. He drew a dirty handkerchief through the red tunnel, remounted, and galloped to the head of his line and hurdled the Confederate breastworks as if he were fox-hunting again in Westchester. As soon as possible he was brevetted a brigadier and with uncanny speed a major general of Volunteers. His men adored him and while other generals rose and fell in a sickening reiteration of disasters, his own command always shone in victory or plucked a laurel from defeat. His nickname was “Our Harry” or “Harry of Navarre,” but patriot as RoBards was, he could find no comfort in the triumphs that led the neighbors to exclaim: “By gollies, it must make you proud to be the father-in-law of such a military genius! It’s a shame Old Abe don’t give him a chance like he gives those blundering butchers he picks out.” Poor RoBards had to agree publicly that he was proud of New York’s pet, but Patty would not stoop to such hypocrisy. She would snap at Chalender’s partisans: “Surely you can’t expect a good word for the wretch from his mother-in-law.” To escape from the irony of these eulogies, Patty and David went up to Tuliptree, though it kept them longer from the newspapers, and the daily directories of killed, wounded, and missing which made almost their only reading. One day Patty came across a paragraph in one of the Westchester papers that called Lincoln a “tyrant,” and a “buffoon,” and the Abolitionists “cowards,” in terms hardly to be expected north of Mason and Dixon’s line. She read it to RoBards: “Among the most recent victims of Abe Lincoln’s iniquitous war is Corporal Gideon Lasher of Kensico, who was murdered at Elmira while arresting a deserter. He had been previously wounded at Brandy Station during the advance from Rappahannock.” Patty looked up from the paper and said: “Gideon Lasher! Could he have been a brother of the Lasher who——”