"I must write to Mr. Morrison's captain to-morrow," he said. "We must make every effort to find him. He may have been wounded and carried off of the field unnoticed."
Kathie prayed fervently for Mr. Morrison's safety. Uncle Robert made immediate inquiries, and they waited in half fear, half hope. In the mean while events in Virginia had the stirring ring of near victories. All was breathless excitement throughout the land. Sorties, surprises, battles, Sherman coming up from his march to the sea, Sheridan brave and dashing as ever, and Grant going slowly with his men, like some ponderous machine that was to crush at last.
And then the telegraph flashed the news far and wide: "Lee has surrendered!" "Richmond has been taken!"
It seemed so odd to Kathie to be going on in her quiet, uneventful fashion. School lessons, music practices, home duties,—nothing grand or heroic. Mrs. Wilder's lecture to the girls had been productive of a little good, beside breaking the foolish cabal; for in it she had touched upon dress and parties, and tried to set before them the urgency of paying some attention to their studies. So there were fewer bows, a plainer arrangement of hair, and less talk of fashion.
"I think it was mean to crowd Kathie Alston out," declared Sue Coleman. "Mamma says the Alstons are people one might be proud of anywhere; and they are extremely well connected. She met them one evening at Mrs. Adams's, and that elegant Mr. Langdon thinks Mr. Conover about perfect. Mamma is so sorry that we did not have her in the tableaux. Every one noticed it. That was your fault, Belle!"
"Of course you are all quite at liberty to choose your own friends," Belle answered, loftily; "I'm sure you agreed to it. You did not want Mary Carson and all that rabble."
"Mary and Kathie are not friends in our acceptation of the term. She is polite to Mary, and I am not sure but that a ladylike courtesy is more effectual in keeping people at a distance than absolute rudeness. I believe Kathie and Emma Lauriston are the only two girls in the school who have not indulged in rudeness in some form or other."
"If she is not hand and glove with Mary Carson, she has another friend who is no better, whom she visits and sends pictures to, and I don't know what all. It's a second or third cousin of our cook. Of course these Strongs are rich; so it is not the breeding as much as the money. But, as I said, you can all do as you like. It seems to me that half of the town has gone crazy on the subject of Kathie Alston."
Emma was a little troubled with these talks about Sarah Strong. She had a certain delicacy which held her aloof from any such associations. "Kathie," she said at length, "I wish you would tell me how you came to take a fancy to those people who were at—the Fair, I believe."
Kathie colored a little. "I don't know as you would understand it," she answered, slowly.