She attended to her duties as usual, and then went to her piano.  The words spoken the previous evening would ever make the place dear to her.  While she was there old Hildy crept in, with her feeble step, and whispered, “I foun’ dis un’er Cap’n Lane’s piller.”

It was but a scrap of paper, unaddressed; but Suwanee understood its significance.  It contained these words:  “I can never repay you, but to discover some coin which a nature like yours can accept has become one of my supreme ambitions.  If I live, we shall meet again.”

Those words formed a glimmering hope which grew fainter and fainter in the dark years which followed.

She did not have to mask her trouble very long, for another sorrow came like an avalanche.  Close to the Union lines, on Cemetery Ridge, lay a white-haired colonel and his two tall sons.  They were among the heroes in Pickett’s final charge, on the 3d of July.  “Missy S’wanee” laughed no more, even in self-defence.

CHAPTER XLI.

Sunday’s lull and Monday’s storm.

Sunday, the 12th of July, proved a long, restful sabbath to Marian and her father, and they spent most of its hours together.  The great tension and strain of the past weeks appeared to be over for a time.  The magnificent Union victories had brought gladness and hopefulness to Mr. Vosburgh, and the return of her friends had relieved his daughter’s mind.  He now thought he saw the end clearly.  He believed that hereafter the tide of rebellion would ebb southward until all the land should be free.

“This day has been a godsend to us both,” he said to Marian, as they sat together in the library before retiring.  “The draft has begun quietly, and no disturbances have followed.  I scarcely remember an evening when the murmur of the city was so faint and suggestive of repose.  I think we can both go to the country soon, with minds comparatively at rest.  I must admit that I expected no such experience as has blessed us to-day.  We needed it.  Not until this respite came did I realize how exhausted from labor and especially anxiety I had become.  You, too, my little girl, are not the blooming lassie you were a year ago.”

“Yet I think I’m stronger in some respects, papa.”

“Yes, in many respects.  Thank God for the past year.  Your sympathy and companionship have made it a new era in my life.  You have influenced other lives, also, as events have amply proved.  Are you not satisfied now that you can be unconventional without being queer?  You have not been a colorless reflection of some social set; neither have you left your home for some startling public career; and yet you have achieved the distinct individuality which truthfulness to nature imparts.  You have simply been developing your better self naturally, and you have helped fine fellows to make the best of themselves.”