cause of grief at present."

"Of whom do you speak?" asked Rose.

"I mean those many good and sweet young girls," said Septimius, "who would
have been happy wives to the thousands of young men who now, like Robert
Hagburn, are going to the war. Those young men--many of them at
least--will sicken and die in camp, or be shot down, or struck through
with bayonets on battle-fields, and turn to dust and bones; while the
girls that would have loved them, and made happy firesides for them, will
pine and wither, and tread along many sour and discontented years, and at
last go out of life without knowing what life is. So you see, Rose, every
shot that takes effect kills two at least, or kills one and worse than
kills the other."

"No woman will live single on account of poor Robert Hagburn being shot,"
said Rose, with a change of tone; "for he would never be married were he
to stay at home and plough the field."

"How can you tell that, Rose?" asked Septimius.

Rose did not tell how she came to know so much about Robert Hagburn's
matrimonial purposes; but after this little talk it appeared as if
something had risen up between them,--a sort of mist, a medium, in which
their intimacy was not increased; for the flow and interchange of
sentiment was balked, and they took only one or two turns in silence along
Septimius's trodden path. I don't know exactly what it was; but there are
cases in which it is inscrutably revealed to persons that they have made a
mistake in what is of the highest concern to them; and this truth often
comes in the shape of a vague depression of the spirit, like a vapor