There was great pleasure, yet mingled with profound sadness, in the meeting of these old and dear friends.  Lucy and her mother were in deep mourning, and in Mrs. Carrington’s countenance Christian resignation blended with heart-breaking sorrow; grief and anxiety had done the work of a score of years, silvering her hair and ploughing deep furrows in the face that five years ago was still fresh and fair.

Mr. Travilla had taken wife and children for a morning drive, and on their return, Adelaide, meeting them at the door, said to her niece, “They have come, they are in Mrs. Carrington’s dressing-room; and she begs that you will go and meet her there.  She has always loved you so dearly, and I know is longing for your sympathy.”

Elsie, waiting only to lay aside hat and gloves, hastened to grant the request of the gentle lady for whom she cherished almost a daughter’s affection.

She found her alone.  They met silently, clasping each other in a long, tearful embrace, Mrs. Carrington’s sobs for many minutes the only sound that broke the stillness of the room.

“I have lost all,” she said at length, as they released each other and sat down side by side upon a sofa; “all:  husband, sons, home——­”

Sobs choked her utterance, and Lucy coming hastily in at the open door of the adjoining room, dropped on her knees by her mother’s side, and taking one thin, pale hand in hers, said tearfully, “Not all, dear mamma; you have me, and Phil, and the children.”

“Me too, mother dear, and your Harry’s children,” added Sophie, who had followed her sister, and now knelt with her.

“Yes, yes, dear daughters, I was wrong:  I have lost much, but have many blessings still left, your love not the least; and my grandchildren are scarcely less dear than my own.  Lucy, dear, here is Elsie.”

“Yes, our own dear, darling Elsie, scarcely changed at all!” Lucy cried, springing up to greet her friend with a warm embrace.

A long talk followed, Mrs. Carrington and Sophie giving their experiences of the war and its results, to which the others listened with deep interest.

“Thank God it is over at last!” concluded the elder lady; “and oh, may He, in His great goodness and mercy, spare us a repetition of it.  Oh, the untold horrors of civil war—­strife among brethren who should know nothing but love for each other—­none can imagine but those who have passed through them!  There was fault on both sides, as there always is when people quarrel.  And what has been gained?  Immense loss of property, and of far more precious lives, an exchange of ease and luxury for a hard struggle with poverty.”

“But it is over, dear mother, and the North will help the South to recuperate,” said Lucy.  “Phil says so, and I’ve heard it from others too; just as soon as the struggle ended, people were saying, ’Now they have given up, the Union is safe, and we’re sorry for them and will do all we can to help them; for they are our own people.’”