sitting-room.  Frank shook hands with Mr. Bowen; kissed Mrs. Bowen dutifully, and cordially too; gave me one strong clasp in his arms, and one kiss; then went after Josephine.  I closed the door softly behind him.  In five minutes by the ticking clock he came out, and strode through the room without a glance at either of us.  I had heard her say “Good bye” in her sweet, clear tone, just as he opened the door; but some instinct impelled me to go in to her at once:  she lay in a dead faint on the floor.

We left Washington that afternoon, and went straight back to Ridgefield.  Josey was in and out of my small house continually:  but for her father and mother, I think she would have stayed with me from choice.  Rare letters came from Frank, and were always reported to me, but, of course, never shown.  If there was any change in her manner, it was more steadily affectionate to her father and mother than ever; the fitful, playful ways of her girlhood were subdued, but, except to me, she showed no symptom of pain, no show of apprehension:  with me alone she sometimes drooped and sighed.  Once she laid her little head on my neck, and, holding me to her tightly, half sobbed,—­

“Oh, I wish—­I wish I could see him just for once!”

I could not speak to answer her.

As rumors of a march toward Manassas increased, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen took her to Dartford:  there was no telegraph-line to Ridgefield, and but one daily mail, and now a day’s delay of news might be a vital loss.  I could not go with them; I was too ill.  At last came that dreadful day of Bull Run.  Its story of shame and blood, trebly exaggerated, ran like fire through the land.  For twenty-four long hours every heart in Ridgefield seemed to stand still; then there was the better news of fewer dead than the first report, and we knew that the enemy had retreated, but no particulars.  Another long, long day, and the papers said Colonel ——­’s regiment was cut to pieces; the fourth mail told another story:  the regiment was safe, but Captains Addison, Black, and—­Jones, I think, were missing.  The fifth day brought me a letter from Mr. Bowen.  Frank was dead, shot through the heart, before the panic began, cheering on his men; he had fallen in the very front rank, and his gallant company, at the risk of their lives, after losing half their number as wounded or killed, had brought off his body, and carried it with them in retreat, to find at last that they had ventured all this for a lifeless corpse!  He did not mention Josephine, but asked me to come to them at once, as he was obliged to go to Washington.  I could not, for I was too ill to travel without a certainty of being quite useless at my journey’s end.  I could but just sit up.  Five days after, I had an incoherent sobbing sort of letter from Mrs. Bowen, to say that they had arranged to have the funeral at Ridgefield the next day but one,—­that Josephine would come out, with her, the night before, and directly to my house, if I was able to receive them.  I sent word by the morning’s mail that I was able, and went myself to the station to meet them.