break her down; and which, despite her many cares and worries, gave her
niece not a little amusement. For Virginia was human, and one morning she
went to her aunt's room to read this editorial from the newspaper:-- "For
the relief of many palpitating hearts it may be well to state that we
understand only two ladies are on the ten thousand dollar list."

"Jinny," she cried, "how can you be so cruel as to read me that, when you
know that I am in a state of frenzy now? How does that relieve me? It
makes it an absolute certainty that Madame Jules and I will have to pay.
We are the only women of importance in the city."

That afternoon she made good her much-uttered threat, and drove to
Bellegarde. Only the Colonel and Virginia and Mammy Easter and Ned were
left in the big house. Rosetta and Uncle Ben and Jackson had been hired
out, and the horses sold,--all save old Dick, who was running,
long-haired, in the fields at Glencoe.

Christmas eve was a steel-gray day, and the sleet froze as it fell. Since
morning Colonel Carvel had sat poking the sitting-room fire, or pacing
the floor restlessly. His occupation was gone. He was observed night and
day by Federal detectives. Virginia strove to amuse him, to conceal her
anxiety as she watched him. Well she knew that but for her he would long
since have fled southward, and often in the bitterness of the night-time
she blamed herself for not telling him to go. Ten years had seemed to
pass over him since the war had begun.

All day long she had been striving to put away from her the memory of
Christmas eves past and gone of her father's early home-coming from the
store, a mysterious smile on his face; of Captain Lige stamping noisily
into the house, exchanging uproarious jests with Ned and Jackson. The