"What is the matter, Horatio?" asked the wife, in the tenderest of
tones, while her expression assured those who saw her face that the
anxiety of the husband had been communicated to the wife.

"I need hardly tell you, Julia, that I am disturbed as I never was
before in all my life," replied he, maintaining his calmness only with
a struggle.

"I can see that something momentous has happened in our country," she
added, hardly able to contain herself, for she felt that she was in the
presence of an unexplained calamity.

"Something has happened, my dear; something terrible,--something that
I did not expect, though many others were sure that it would come," he
continued, seating himself at the side of his wife.

"But you do not tell me what it is," said the lady, with a look which
indicated that her worst fears were confirmed. "Is Florry worse? Is
she"--

"So far as I know, Florry is as well as usual," interposed the husband.
"But a state of war exists at the present moment between the North and
the South."




CHAPTER II