_An' butter!_" This last-named article of common diet was mentioned with an air of reverential awe; and, somehow, it hurt the well-fed Union officer far more than had she made some direct accusation against the invading armies of the North.
"Don't, Virgie--please," he murmured softly.

"There are some things we just can't bear to listen to--even in times of war." He sighed and dropped into his former seat, striving gently to change the subject.
"You have lived here--always ?" "Oh, no," she assured him, with a lift of her small, patrician brows.
"_This_ is the overseer's house.

_Our_ house used to be up on the hill, in the grove." "_Used_ to be-- ?" "Yes, sir.

But--but the Yankees burnt it up." Morrison's fist came down on the table with a crash.

He remembered now his raid of some months before upon this same plantation, so unfamiliar in its present neglected state.