"Peyton, I have few friends left in this land now. I want you to
look these letters over." He hands him several letters from Hardin
and from the priest. With tender delicacy, his hands close on the
last words of affection from the gentle dark-eyed wife, who brought
him the great dowry of Lagunitas, and gave him his little Isabel.

Peyton reads the words, old in date but new in their crushing force
of sorrow to the husband. Resting on the stacked arms in front
of his tent, the colors of Louisiana and the silken shreds of the
Stars and Bars wait for the bugles of reveille calling again to
battle.

Dolores dying of sudden illness, cut off in her youthful prime, was
only able to receive the last rites of the Church, to smile fondly
in her last moments, as she kisses the picture of the absent soldier
of the Southern Cross. Francois Ribaut, the French gentleman, writes
a sad letter, with no formula of the priest. He knows Maxime Valois
is face to face with death, in these awful days of war. A costly
sacrifice on the altar of Southern rights may be his fate at any
moment.

It is to comfort, not admonish, to pledge every friendly office,
that the delicate-minded padre softens the blow. Later, the priest
writes of the lonely child, whose tender youth wards off the blow
of the rod of sorrow.

Philip Hardin's letter mainly refers to the important business
interests of the vast estate. The possibility of the orphanage of
Isabel occurs. He suggests the propriety of Colonel Valois' making