An hour later, Virginia and her aunt and the Captain, followed by Mammy aster and Rosetta and Susan, were walking through the streets of the stillest city in the Union.  All that they met was a provost’s guard, for St. Louis was under Martial Law.  Once in a while they saw the light of some contemptuous citizen of the residence district who had stayed to laugh.  Out in the suburbs, at the country houses of the first families, people of distinction slept five and six in a room—­many with only a quilt between body and matting.  Little wonder that these dreamed of Hessians and destruction.  In town they slept with their doors open, those who remained and had faith.  Martial law means passes and explanations, and walking generally in the light of day.  Martial law means that the Commander-in-chief, if he be an artist in well doing, may use his boot freely on politicians bland or beetle-browed.  No police force ever gave the sense of security inspired by a provost’s guard.

Captain Lige sat on the steps of Colonel Carvel’s house that night, long after the ladies were gone to bed.  The only sounds breaking the silence of the city were the beat of the feet of the marching squads and the call of the corporal’s relief.  But the Captain smoked in agony until the clouds of two days slipped away from under the stars, for he was trying to decide a Question.  Then he went up to a room in the house which had been known as his since the rafters were put down on that floor.

The next morning, as the Captain and Virginia sit at breakfast together with only Mammy Easter to cook and Rosetta to wait on them, the Colonel bursts in.  He is dusty and travel-stained from his night on the train, but his gray eyes light with affection as he sees his friend beside his daughter.

“Jinny,” he cries as he kisses her, “Jinny, I’m proud oil you, my girl!  You didn’t let the Yankees frighten you—­But where is Jackson?”

And so the whole miserable tale has to be told over again, between laughter and tears on Virginia’s part, and laughter and strong language on Colonel Carvel’s.  What—­blessing that Lige met them, else the Colonel might now be starting for the Cumberland River in search of his daughter.  The Captain does not take much part in the conversation, and he refuses the cigar which is offered him.  Mr. Carvel draws back in surprise.

“Lige,” he says, “this is the first time to my knowledge.”

“I smoked too many last night,” says the Captain.  The Colonel sat down, with his feet against the mantel, too full of affairs to take much notice of Mr. Brent’s apathy.

“The Yanks have taken the first trick—­that’s sure,” he said.  “But I think we’ll laugh last, Jinny.  Jefferson City isn’t precisely quiet.  The state has got more militia, or will have more militia in a day or two.  We won’t miss the thousand they stole in Camp Jackson.  They’re organizing up there.  And I’ve got a few commissions right here,” and he tapped his pocket.