“Yes, but I hope not too much, for he joins his ship to-morrow, and I would not have my heart rent asunder should he never return.” Then, seeing the effect of her words, she threw her arms around Patsey. “Ah, Patsey dear, I should not have said that. I should have remembered. But no news is good news, they say; so do not let us look for the ill news that flies quickly.”
The house where they were was on Capitol Hill, which neighborhood then represented about all there was of Washington. “I am glad you came to-day,” Patsey told her friend, “for this afternoon there is to be a fringe party at the Ingles.”
“A fringe party?”
“Yes, you know it is quite the fashion to meet around at each other’s houses and make fringe for the soldier’s epaulets. The government is too poor to buy it, and we can’t have our boys go without.” Patsey sighed, and Lettice knew of whom she was thinking.
“You’ll be my cousin yet, Patsey,” she said, and Patsey gave her a grateful smile; but despite their girlish enthusiasm over Lettice’s arrival, each noted that the other looked sadder and was quieter than when they last met.
“War is a dreadful thing,” said Patsey, shaking her head. “I never knew how dreadful till I came here to Washington and heard the talk that our brave men have been beaten and made prisoners, up there on the frontier, or have been massacred by Indians. I wish there were no war. I am patriotic, I hope, but I think the New Englanders are half right when they say, ‘Anything but war.’”
“Even disgrace?”
“Even disgrace; for we have had that, in spite of all our fighting.”
“But we have had some rousing victories at sea; quite enough to encourage us to keep up a good heart. No, Patsey, with all I have lost, I still believe it was right for us to fight.”
“You have more spirit than I, for I would grovel on my knees, give up everything, be a British subject, or anything else, if it would but give me back my Joe safe and sound. You don’t know what it is to feel so, do you, Lettice dear? Your heart is not so deeply touched.”