“We shall see him to-day, Aunt Lillian,” was the joyful answer.  “The newspaper says that all the Camp Jackson prisoners are to be set free to-day, on parole.  Oh, I knew they would not dare to hold them.  The whole state would have risen to their rescue.”

Mrs. Colfax did not receive these tidings with transports.  She permitted her niece to come into her room, and then:  sank into a chair before the mirror of her dressing-table, and scanned her face there.

“I could not sleep a wink, Jinny, all night long.  I look wretchedly.  I am afraid I am going to have another of my attacks.  How it is raining!  What does the newspaper say?”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Virginia, used to her aunt’s vagaries.

“No, no, tell me.  I am much too nervous to read it.”

“It says that they will be paroled to-day, and that they passed a comfortable night.”

“It must be a Yankee lie,” said the lady.  “Oh, what a night!  I saw them torturing him in a thousand ways the barbarians!  I know he had to sleep on a dirty floor with low-down trash.”

“But we shall have him here to-night, Aunt Lillian!” cried Virginia.  “Mammy, tell Uncle Ben that Mr. Clarence will be here for tea.  We must have a feast for him.  Pa said that they could not hold them.”

“Where is Comyn?” inquired Mrs. Colfax.  “Has he gone down to see Clarence?”

“He went to Jefferson City last night,” replied Virginia.  “The Governor sent for him.”

Mrs. Colfax exclaimed in horror at this news.

“Do you mean that he has deserted us?” she cried.  “That he has left us here defenceless,—­at the mercy of the Dutch, that they may wreak their vengeance upon us women?  How can you sit still, Virginia?  If I were your age and able to drag myself to the street, I should be at the Arsenal now.  I should be on my knees before that detestable Captain Lyon, even if he is a Yankee.”  Virginia kept her temper.

“I do not go on my knees to any man,” she said.  “Rosetta, tell Ned I wish the carriage at once.”

Her aunt seized her convulsively by the arm.

“Where are you going, Jinny?” she demanded.  “Your Pa would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

A smile, half pity, crossed the girl’s anxious face.

“I am afraid that I must risk adding to your misfortune, Aunt Lillian,” she said, and left the room.

Virginia drove to Mr. Brinsmade’s.  His was one of the Union houses which she might visit and not lose her self respect.  Like many Southerners, when it became a question of go or stay, Mr. Brinsmade’s unfaltering love for the Union had kept him in.  He had voted for Mr. Bell, and later had presided at Crittenden Compromise meetings.  In short, as a man of peace, he would have been willing to sacrifice much for peace.  And now that it was to be war, and he had taken his stand uncompromisingly with the Union, the neighbors whom he had befriended for so