“Why, my dear child, they’re trying to find the Confederate lines and strike them. You can’t lose anything—you may gain much—by remaining quiet here awhile. The Mississippi, I don’t doubt, will soon be open from end to end.”
A fortnight seemed scarcely more than a day when it was past, and presently two of them had gone. One day comes Mr. Thornton, saying:—
“My dear child, I cannot tell you how I have the news, but you may depend upon its correctness. New Orleans is to be attacked by the most powerful naval expedition that ever sailed under the United States flag. If the place is not in our hands by the first of April I will put you through both lines, if I have to go with you myself.” When Mary made no answer, he added, “Your delays have all been unavoidable, my child!”
“Oh, I don’t know; I don’t know!” exclaimed Mary, with sudden distraction; “it seems to me I must be to blame, or I’d have been through long ago. I ought to have run through the lines. I ought to have ‘run the blockade.’”
“My child,” said the lawyer, “you’re mad.”
“You’ll see,” replied Mary, almost in soliloquy.
CHAPTER LIV.
“WHO GOES THERE?”