"Is Mrs. Reynolds at home?" I ask.
"No, sir, she's at her mother's."
"Are you alone here?"
"There's a man a ploughing, sir, out in the field there, and another girl—she's a grubbing."
"Whose children are these? Yours?"
"That one's mine, sir; the other two's mother is gone."
"Where?"
"To Memphis, I s'pose, sir. They sent her off and sold her the time your soldiers took the fort."
"Will your mistress be back to-night?"