The young officer bore up bravely, but when he left his mother and sisters in tears, his face was stern with effort.  Marian observed, however, that his last glance from the platform of the cars rested upon herself.  She returned home depressed and nervously excited, and there found additional cause for solicitude in a letter from her father informing her of the great disaster to Union arms which poor generalship had invited.  This, as she then felt, would have been bad enough, but in a few tender, closing words, he told her that they might not hear from him in some time, as he had been ordered on a service that required secrecy and involved some danger.  Mrs. Vosburgh was profuse in her lamentations and protests against her husband’s course, but Marian went to her room and sobbed until almost exhausted.

Her nature, however, was too strong, positive, and unchastened to find relief in tears, or to submit resignedly.  Her heart was full of bitterness and revolt, and her partisanship was becoming almost as intense as that of Mrs. Merwyn.

The afternoon closed with a dismal rain-storm, which added to her depression, while relieving her from the fear of callers.  “O dear!” she exclaimed, as she rose from the mere form of supper, “I have both head-ache and heart-ache.  I am going to try to get through the rest of this dismal day in sleep.”

“Marian, do, at least, sit an hour or two with me.  Some one may come and divert your thoughts.”

“No one can divert me to-night.  It seems as if an age had passed since we came here in June.”

“Your father knows how alone we are in the world, with no near relatives to call upon.  I think he owes his first duty to us.”

“The men of the North, who are right, should be as ready to sacrifice everything as the men of the South, who are wrong; and so also should Northern women.  I am proud of the fact that my father is employed and trusted by his government.  The wrong rests with those who caused the war.”

“Every man can’t go and should not go.  The business of the country must be carried on just the same, and rich business men are as important as soldiers.  I only wish that, in our loneliness and with the future so full of uncertainty, you would give sensible encouragement to one abundantly able to give you wealth and the highest position.”

“Mr. Merwyn?”

“Yes, Mr. Merwyn,” continued her mother, with an emphasis somewhat irritable.  “He is not an old, worn-out millionnaire, like Mr. Lanniere.  He is young, exceedingly handsome, so high-born that he is received as an equal in the houses of the titled abroad.  He has come to me like an honorable man, and asked for the privilege of paying his addresses.  He would have asked your father had he been in town.  He was frank about his affairs, and has just received, in his own name, a very large property, which he proposes to double by entering upon business in New York.”