The children were then packed off to bed, and the farmer and his wife joined Vincent and Lucy by the fire.
"As to sleeping," the woman said, "John and I have been talking it over, and the best way we can see is that you should sleep with me, ma'am, and we will make up a bed on the floor here for my husband and yours." "Thank you, that will do very nicely; though I don't like interfering with your arrangements." "Not at all, ma'am--not at all; it makes a nice change having someone come in, especially of late, when there is no more pleasure in going about in this country, and people don't go out after dark more than they can help.

Ah, it's a bad time! My sister says you are going west, but I see you have got your cart full of garden truck.

How you have raised it so soon, I don't know; for Liza wrote to me two months since as she hadn't been able to sell her place, and it was just a wilderness.

Are you going to get rid of it at Camden to-morrow ?" Vincent had already been assured as to the politics of his present host and hostess, and he therefore did not hesitate to say: "The fact is, madam, we are anxious to get along without being questioned by any Yankee troops we may fall in with; and we have bought the things you see in the cart from your sister, as, going along with a cart full, anyone we met would take us for farmers living close by, on their road to the next market town." "Oh, oh! that's it!" the farmer said significantly.

"Want to get through the lines, eh ?" Vincent nodded.
"Didn't I think so!" the farmer said, rubbing his hands.