All the members of our party sat up late that evening to eke out the time they might spend together before parting.  It was after midnight when they retired.

The travelers met at an early breakfast the next morning.  Their baggage had been sent on and checked in advance.  They had nothing to do but make the most of the few remaining minutes.

When the meal was over they all hastily left the table and went to their rooms to put on their traveling wraps.

Fabian and Violet were to accompany the travelers to the railway depot to see them off, so that there was to be no leave taking at the hotel except of the baby.

Corona went into the nurse’s room, took the mite in her arms, held it to her bosom, caressed and kissed it tenderly, but dropped no tear on its sweet, fair face or soft white robe.

The baby received all this love with delight, leaping and dancing in Corona’s arms, then gazing at her with intense eyes, and crowing and prattling in inarticulate and unintelligible language, of some happy, incommunicable news, some joyful message it would deliver if it could.

“Come, Cora.  We are waiting for you, my dear,” sounded the voice of Mr. Fabian in the hall outside.

Corona kissed the baby for the last time, blessed it for the vague sweet hope it had infused into her heart, and then laid it in its nurse’s arms and left the room.

“We shall barely catch the train, if we catch it at all.  And the captain is as nearly in a ‘stew’ as an officer and a gentleman permits himself to get.  We have been looking for you everywhere,” said Mr. Fabian.

“I was in the nurse’s room, bidding good-by to the baby,” replied Cora.

“Oh!”

No more was said.  Baby was excuse for any amount of delay, even though it had caused the missing of their train and the driving of the captain into a war dance.

They hurried down stairs and entered the carriages that were waiting to take them to the depot—­Fabian, Violet, Clarence and Corona in one; Captain and Mrs. Neville, and Mrs. Neville’s maid, in the other.  And so they drove to the depot, and arrived just in time to take their tickets and rush to their seats on the train, with no further leave taking than a kiss all around, and a general, heartfelt “God bless you!”

The train was speeding away, leaving Washington City behind, when our party first began to realize that they were really “off” and to take in their surroundings.

Captain and Mrs. Neville sat together about midway in the car.  Clarence and Corona sat immediately behind them.  On the opposite side sat Mrs. Neville’s colored maid, Manda, and in the rear corner, on the same side, the captain’s orderly—­a new recruit.  About half the remaining seats in the car were occupied by other travelers.

At Harper’s Ferry, amid the most beautiful and sublime mountain scenery of Virginia, the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, which, in those ante-bellum days, was well served from the hotel at the depot.  After dinner, the train started off again at express speed, stopping but at few stations, until near night, when it reached North End Junction, where Mr. Clarence was to get off.