Surely, if there are heavenly guardians, we need them now.

_June 7._ (_In the cellar._)--There is one thing I feel especially
grateful for, that amid these horrors we have been spared that of
suffering for water. The weather has been dry a long time, and we hear
of others dipping up the water from ditches and mud-holes. This place
has two large underground cisterns of good cool water, and every night
in my subterranean dressing-room a tub of cold water is the nerve-calmer
that sends me to sleep in spite of the roar. One cistern I had to give
up to the soldiers, who swarm about like hungry animals seeking
something to devour. Poor fellows! my heart bleeds for them. They have
nothing but spoiled, greasy bacon, and bread made of musty pea-flour,
and but little of that. The sick ones can't bolt it. They come into the
kitchen when Martha puts the pan of corn-bread in the stove, and beg for
the bowl she mixed it in. They shake up the scrapings with water, put in
their bacon, and boil the mixture into a kind of soup, which is easier
to swallow than pea-bread. When I happen in, they look so ashamed of
their poor clothes. I know we saved the lives of two by giving a few
meals. To-day one crawled on the gallery to lie in the breeze. He looked
as if shells had lost their terrors for his dumb and famished misery.
I've taught Martha to make first-rate corn-meal gruel, because I can eat
meal easier that way than in hoe-cake, and I fixed him a saucerful, put
milk and sugar and nutmeg--I've actually got a nutmeg! When he ate it
the tears ran from his eyes. "Oh, madam, there was never anything so
good! I shall get better."

_June 9._--The churches are a great resort for those who have no caves.
People fancy they are not shelled so much, and they are substantial and
the pews good to sleep in. We had to leave this house last night, they
were shelling our quarter so heavily. The night before, Martha forsook