“That was for my grandmother.  He was in love with her in 1850,” said Sharlee to Queed, and immediately whisked away to tell something else to somebody else.

One of the first groups of veterans in the line, heading the Virginia Division, was the popular R.E.  Lee Camp of Richmond.  All afternoon they trod to the continual accompaniment of cheers.  No exclusive “show” company ever marched in better time than these septuagenarians, and this was everywhere the subject of comment.  A Grand Army man stood in the press on the sidewalk, and, struck by the gallant step of the old fellows, yelled out good-naturedly:—­

“You boys been drillin’ to learn to march like that, haven’t you?”

Instantly a white-beard in the ranks called back:  “No, sir! We never have forgot!”

Other camps were not so rhythmic in their tread.  Some of the lines were very dragging and straggly; the old feet shuffled and faltered in a way which showed that their march was nearly over.  Not fifty yards away from Queed, one veteran pitched out of the ranks; he was lifted up and received into the house opposite which he fell.  Sadder than the men were the old battle-flags, soiled wisps that the aged hands held aloft with the most solicitous care.  The flag-poles were heavy and the men’s arms weaker than once they were; sometimes two or even three men acted jointly as standard-bearer.

These old flags, mere unrecognizable fragments as many of them were, were popular with the onlookers.  Each as it marched by, was hailed with a new roar.  Of course there were many tears.  There was hardly anybody in all that crowd, over fifty years old, in whom the sight of these fast dwindling ranks did not stir memories of some personal bereavement.  The old ladies on the porch no longer used their handkerchiefs chiefly for waving.  Queed saw one of them wave hers frantically toward a drooping little knot of passing gray-coats, and then fall back into a chair, the same handkerchief at her eyes.  Sharlee, who was explaining everything that anybody wanted to know, happened to be standing near him; she followed his glance and whispered gently:—­

“Her husband and two of her brothers were killed at Gettysburg.  Her husband was in Pickett’s Division.  Those were Pickett’s men that just passed—­about all there are left now.”

A little while afterwards, she added:  “It is not so gay as one of your Grand Army Days, is it?  You see ... it all comes home very close to us.  Those old men that can’t be with us much longer are our mothers’ brothers, and sweethearts, and uncles, and fathers.  They went out so young—­so brave and full of hope—­they poured out by hundreds of thousands.  Down this very street they marched, no more than boys, and our mothers stood here where we are standing, to bid them godspeed.  And now look at what is left of them, straggling by.  There is nobody on this porch—­but you—­who did not lose somebody that was dear to them.  And then there was our pride ... for we were proud.  So that is why our old ladies cry to-day.”