have just carried a bundle to an ardent young lady who wishes to assist.
A slight gloom is settling down, and the inmates here are not quite so
cheerfully confident as in July.




IV

A BELEAGUERED CITY


_Oct. 22._--When I came to breakfast this morning Rob was capering over
another victory--Ball's Bluff. He would read me, "We pitched the Yankees
over the bluff," and ask me in the next breath to go to the theater
this evening. I turned on the poor fellow. "Don't tell me about your
victories. You vowed by all your idols that the blockade would be raised
by October 1, and I notice the ships are still serenely anchored below
the city."

"G., you are just as pertinacious yourself in championing your opinions.
What sustains you when nobody agrees with you?"

_Oct. 28._--When I dropped in at Uncle Ralph's last evening to welcome
them back, the whole family were busy at a great center-table copying
sequestration acts for the Confederate Government. The property of all
Northerners and Unionists is to be sequestrated, and Uncle Ralph can
hardly get the work done fast enough. My aunt apologized for the rooms
looking chilly; she feared to put the carpets down, as the city might be
taken and burned by the Federals. "We are living as much packed up as