water, glancing toward the carriage road. "Big fight down the river.
Listen! Can you hear the guns?"

"Yes, plain," she answered, tilting her tiny head. "An' las' night, when
I went to bed, I could hear 'em--oh! ever so loud: Boom! Boom!
Boom-boom! So I knelt up an' asked the Lord not to let any of 'em hit
you."

Two arms, in their tattered gray, slipped round the child. He kissed
her, in that strange, fierce passion of a man who has lost his mate,
and his grief-torn love is magnified in the mite who reflects her image
and her memory.

"Did you, honey?" he asked, with a trembling lip. "Well, I reckon that
saved your daddy, for not one shell touched him--no, not one!" He kissed
her again, and laughed. "And I tell you, Virgie, they were coming as
thick as bees."

Once more he sipped at the grateful, cooling draught of water, when the
child asked suddenly:

"How is Gen'ral Lee?"

Down came the gourd upon the table. The Southerner was on his feet, with
a stiffened back; and his dusty slouch hat was in his hand.

"He's well; God bless him! Well!"

The tone was deep and tender, proud, but as reverent as the baby's
prayer for her father's immunity from harm; yet the man who spoke sank