One day, in great excitement, Eugenie Renault rang the bell of the Carvel
house, and ran past the astounded Jackson up the stairs to Virginia's
room, the door of which she burst open.

"Oh, Jinny!" she cried, "Puss Russell's house is surrounded by Yankees,
and Puss and Emily and all the family are prisoners!"

"Prisoners! What for?" said Virginia, dropping in her excitement her last
year's bonnet, which she was trimming with red, white, and red.

"Because," said Eugenie, sputtering with indignation "because they waved
at some of our poor fellows who were being taken to the slave pen. They
were being marched past Mr. Russell's house under guard--Puss had a
small--"

"Confederate flag," put in Virginia, smiling in spite of herself.

"And she waved it between the shutters," Eugenie continued. And some one
told, the provost marshal. He has had the house surrounded, and the
family have to stay there."

"But if the food gives out?"

"Then," said Miss Renault, in a voice of awe, "then each one of the
family is to have just a common army ration. They are to be treated as
prisoners."

"Oh, those Yankees are detestable!" exclaimed Virginia. "But they shall
pay for it. As soon as our army is organized and equipped, they shall pay
for it ten times over." She tried on the bonnet, conspicuous with its red