Even my constitutionals in the chilly halls possessed a certain charm, for the house was never still.  Sentinels tramped round it all night long, their muskets glittering in the wintry moonlight as they walked, or stood before the doors straight and silent as figures of stone, causing one to conjure up romantic visions of guarded forts, sudden surprises, and daring deeds; for in these war times the humdrum life of Yankeedom has vanished, and the most prosaic feel some thrill of that excitement which stirs the Nation’s heart, and makes its capital a camp of hospitals.  Wandering up and down these lower halls I often heard cries from above, steps hurrying to and fro, saw surgeons passing up, or men coming down carrying a stretcher, where lay a long white figure whose face was shrouded, and whose fight was done.  Sometimes I stopped to watch the passers in the street, the moonlight shining on the spire opposite, or the gleam of some vessel floating, like a white-winged sea-gull, down the broad Potomac, whose fullest flow can never wash away the red stain of the land.

AMY’S VALLEY OF HUMILIATION

From ‘Little Women’

“That boy is a perfect Cyclops, isn’t he?” said Amy one day, as Laurie clattered by on horseback, with a flourish of his whip as he passed.

“How dare you say so, when he’s got both his eyes? and very handsome ones they are, too,” cried Jo, who resented any slighting remarks about her friend.

“I didn’t say anything about his eyes; and I don’t see why you need fire up when I admire his riding.”

“Oh, my goodness! that little goose means a centaur, and she called him a Cyclops,” exclaimed Jo, with a burst of laughter.

“You needn’t be so rude; it’s only a ‘lapse of lingy,’ as Mr. Davis says,” retorted Amy, finishing Jo with her Latin.  “I just wish I had a little of the money Laurie spends on that horse,” she added, as if to herself, yet hoping her sisters would hear.

“Why?” asked Meg, kindly, for Jo had gone off in another laugh at Amy’s second blunder.

“I need it so much:  I’m dreadfully in debt, and it won’t be my turn to have the rag-money for a month.”

“In debt, Amy:  what do you mean?” and Meg looked sober.

“Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes; and I can’t pay them, you know, till I have money, for Marmee forbids my having anything charged at the shop.”

“Tell me all about it.  Are limes the fashion now?  It used to be pricking bits of rubber to make balls;” and Meg tried to keep her countenance, Amy looked so grave and important.

“Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to be thought mean, you must do it too.  It’s nothing but limes now, for every one is sucking them in their desks in school-time, and trading them off for pencils, bead-rings, paper dolls, or something else, at recess.  If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime; if she’s mad with her, she eats one before her face, and don’t offer even a suck.  They treat by turns; and I’ve had ever so many, but haven’t returned them, and I ought, for they are debts of honor, you know.”