He pulled the check-string as we reached the house, adding, "This is it," and absurdly correcting himself with "Where do you live?"--"211. I thank you. Good-evening"; the last with emphasis as he prepared to follow. He returned the salutation, and I hurriedly regained the house.
Monsieur stood over the way. A look through the blinds showed him returning to his domicile, several doors below.
I returned to my own painful reflections. The Mr. Todd who was my "sweetheart" when I was twelve and he twenty-four, who was my brother"s friend, and daily at our home, was put away from among our acquaintance at the beginning of the war. This one, I should not know. Cords of candy and mountains of bouquets bestowed in childish days will not make my country"s enemy my friend now that I am a woman.
Tuesday, May 2d, 1865.
While praying for the return of those who have fought so n.o.bly for us, how I have dreaded their first days at home! Since the boys died, I have constantly thought of what pain it would bring to see their comrades return without them--to see families reunited, and know that ours never could be again, save in heaven. Last Sat.u.r.day, the 29th of April, seven hundred and fifty paroled Louisianians from Lee"s army were brought here--the sole survivors of ten regiments who left four years ago so full of hope and determination. On the 29th of April, 1861, George left New Orleans with his regiment. On the fourth anniversary of that day, they came back; but George and Gibbes have long been lying in their graves....
June 15th.
Our Confederacy has gone with one crash--the report of the pistol fired at Lincoln.
THE END