“Oh, it was a long time ago—­a month, maybe—­an’ they came after our horses.  Mamma an’ me were all by ourselves—­’ceptin’ Uncle Billy and Sally Ann.  An’ we were dreadful scared—­an’ we hid in the ice house.”

She paused.  Her listener had leaned his elbow on the table, his hand across his eyes.

“Yes, dear.  Go on.”

The child had been standing opposite, with Susan Jemima and the acorn-coffee pot between them; but gradually she began to edge a little nearer, till presently she stood beside him, fingering a shiny button on his coat.

“An’ the blue boys ate up everything we had—­an’ took our corn.  An’ when they went away from our house, they—­a man set it on fire.  But another man got real mad with him, an’—­an’ shot him. I know, ’cause Uncle Billy put him in the ground.”  She paused, then sank her voice to a whisper of mysterious dread, “An’—­an’ I saw him!”

“Don’t think about it, Virgie,” begged Morrison, slipping his arm about the mite, and trying not to put his own beloved ones in the little rebel’s place.  “What happened then?”

“We came to live here,” said Virgie; “but Mamma got sick.  Oh, she got terrible sick—­an’ one night Daddy came through, and put her in the ground, too.  But he says she’s jus’ asleep.”

The soldier started.  Mrs. Cary dead?  This poor tot motherless?  He drew the baby closer to him, stroking her hair, as her sleeping mother might have done, and waited for the rest.

“An’ las’ Friday, Sally Ann went away—­I don’t know where—­an’—­”

“What?” asked Morrison.  “She left you here—­all by yourself?”

“Yes, sir,” said the child, with a careless laugh.  “But I don’t mind.  Sally Ann was a triflin’ nigger, anyhow.  You see—­”

“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, “what became of the old colored man who—­”

“Uncle Billy?  Yes, sir.  We sent him up to Richmond—­to get some things, but he can’t come back—­the Yankees won’t let him.”

“Won’t they?”

“No, sir.  An’ Daddy’s been tryin’ to get me up to Richmon’, where my Aunt Margaret lives at, but he can’t—­’cause the Yankees are up the river an’ down the river, an’—­an’ everywhere—­an’ he can’t.”  She paused, as Morrison turned to her from his restless pacing up and down.  “My, but you’ve got fine clo’es!  Daddy’s clo’es are all rags—­with—­with holes in ’em.”

He could not answer.  There was nothing for him to say, and Virgie scorched him with another question: 

“What did you come after Daddy for?”

“Oh, not because I wanted to, little girl,” he burst out harshly.  “But you wouldn’t understand.”  He had turned away, and was gazing through the open door, listening to the muttered wrath of the big black guns far down the river.  “It’s war!  One of the hateful, pitiful things of war!  I came because I had my orders.”

“From your Gen’ral?”

He lowered his chin, regarding her in mild astonishment.