All of which Flora caught; if not the words, so truly the spirit that the words were no matter.
"Just as we were starting home," soliloquized, that night, our diary, "the newsboys came crying all around, that General Beauregard had opened fire on Fort Sumter, and the war has begun. Poor Constance! it's little she'll sleep to-night."
XXVI
SWIFT GOING, DOWN STREAM
Strangely slow travelled news in '61. After thirty hours' bombardment Fort Sumter had fallen before any person in New Orleans was sure the attack had been made. When five days later a yet more stupendous though quieter thing occurred, the tidings reached Kincaid's Battery only on the afternoon of the next one in fair time to be read at the close of dress parade. But then what shoutings! The wondering Callenders were just starting for a drive up-town. At the grove gate their horses were frightened out of all propriety by an opening peal, down in the camp, from "Roaring Betsy." And listen!
The black driver drew in. From Jackson Square came distant thunders and across the great bend of the river they could see the white puff of each discharge. What could it mean?
"Oh, Nan, the Abolitionists must have sued for peace!" exclaimed the sister.
"No-no!" cried Miranda. "Hark!"