Where was it?  It had been carried by six sweating negroes up the narrow stairs into the Judge’s office.  Stephen and Shadrach had by Mr. Whipple’s orders cleared a corner of his inner office and bedroom of papers and books and rubbish, and there the bulky instrument was finally set up.  It occupied one-third of the space.  The Judge watched the proceeding grimly, choking now and again from the dust that was raised, yet uttering never a word.  He locked the lid when the van man handed him the key, and thrust that in his pocket.

Stephen had of late found enough to do in St. Louis.  He was the kind of man to whom promotions came unsought, and without noise.  In the autumn he had been made a captain in the Halleck Guards of the State Militia, as a reward for his indefatigable work in the armories and his knowledge of tactics.  Twice his company had been called out at night, and once they made a campaign as far as the Merimec and captured a party of recruits who were destined for Jefferson Davis.  Some weeks passed before Mr. Brinsmade heard of his promotion and this exploit, and yet scarcely a day went by that he did not see the young man at the big hospital.  For Stephen helped in the work of the Sanitary Commission too, and so strove to make up in zeal for the service in the field which he longed to give.

After Christmas Mr. and Mrs. Brinsmade moved out to their place on the Bellefontaine Road.  This was to force Anne to take a rest.  For the girl was worn out with watching at the hospitals, and with tending the destitute mothers and children from the ranks of the refugees.  The Brinsmade place was not far from the Fair Grounds,—­now a receiving camp for the crude but eager regiments of the Northern states.  To Mr. Brinsmade’s, when the day’s duty was done, the young Union officers used to ride, and often there would be half a dozen of them to tea.  That house, and other great houses on the Bellefontaine Road with which this history has no occasion to deal, were as homes to many a poor fellow who would never see home again.  Sometimes Anne would gather together such young ladies of her acquaintance from the neighbor hood and the city as their interests and sympathies permitted to waltz with a Union officer, and there would be a little dance.  To these dances Stephen Brice was usually invited.

One such occasion occurred on a Friday in January, and Mr. Brinsmade himself called in his buggy and drove Stephen to the country early in the afternoon.  He and Anne went for a walk along the river, the surface of which was broken by lumps of yellow ice.  Gray clouds hung low in the sky as they picked their way over the frozen furrows of the ploughed fields.  The grass was all a yellow-brown, but the north wind which swayed the bare trees brought a touch of color to Anne’s cheeks.  Before they realized where they were, they had nearly crossed the Bellegarde estate, and the house itself was come into view, standing high on the slope above the withered garden.  They halted.