“She hoped to take a steam-ship for New Orleans, to join her husband there.”
“Some rebel fellow, I suppose.”
“No, a Union man, she says.”
“Oh, of course!” said the sharp-eyed one, sceptically. “Well, she’s missed it. The last steamer’s gone and may get back or may not.” He looked at her again, narrowly, from behind his companion’s shoulder. She was stooping slightly toward the child, rearranging some tie under its lifted chin and answering its questions in what seemed a chastened voice. He murmured to his fellow, “How do you know she isn’t a spy?”
The other one turned upon him a look of pure amusement, but, seeing the set lips and earnest eye of his companion, said softly, with a faint, scouting hiss and smile:—
“She’s a perfect lady—a perfect one.”
“Her friend isn’t,” said the aggressive man.
“Here they come,” observed the other aloud, looking up the street. There was a general turning of attention and concentration of the street’s population toward the edge of either sidewalk. A force of police was clearing back into the by-streets a dense tangle of drays, wagons, carriages, and white-topped omnibuses, and far up the way could be seen the fluttering and tossing of handkerchiefs, and in the midst a solid mass of blue with a sheen of bayonets above, and every now and then a brazen reflection from in front, where the martial band marched before. It was not playing. The ear caught distantly, instead of its notes, the warlike thunder of the drum corps.
The sharper man nudged his companion mysteriously.
“Listen,” he whispered. Neither they nor the other pair had materially changed their relative positions. The older woman was speaking.