"That's the time I cut her!"
One seized her bonnet, put it on, tied the ribbon under his chin and amid the shouts of his half-drunken companions, paraded the house, and wore it into the streets when he left.
When the noise had died away and the house was still at last, Jennie came forth from the little room in which she had taken refuge, leading her grandmother. Hand in hand they viewed the wreck.
The thing that hurt the girl most of all was the ruin of her desk—her letters from Dick Welford, the boys, her father and mother, the diary she had kept with the intimate secrets of her young heart—all had been opened, thumbed and thrown over the floor. The little perfumed notes she had received from her first beaux—invitations to buggy rides, concerts, and parties, and all of them beginning, "Compliments of"—had been profaned by dirty greasy fingers. Some were torn into little bits and scattered over the room, others were ground into the floor by hobnails in heavy boot heels.
Her last letter from Socola was stolen—to be turned over to the commander for inspection no doubt. And then she broke into a foolish laugh. The strain was over. What did it matter—this clutter of goods and chattels on the floor—she was young—it was the morning of life and she had met her fate!
In a sudden rush of emotion she threw her arms around her grandmother's neck and cried:
"Thank the good Lord, grandma, they didn't shoot you!"
The sweet old lady was strangely quiet, and her eyes had a queer set look. She bore the strain without a break until they entered the wreck of the stately parlor. She saw the slashed portrait of the Colonel lying on the floor and sank in a heap beside it without a word or sound.
Jennie succeeded at last in obtaining a pass to New Orleans, consigning the body to Judge Roger Barton. She stepped on board the little steamer absolutely alone. Every servant had gone to the camp of the soldiers or had entered the service of the crowd of marauders who decided to return to Fairview and occupy the house.
Jennie had gone through so much the tired spirit refused to respond to further sensations. She obeyed orders in a dumb mechanical way.