"Your father is slowly recovering. But he will never sit his saddle again, dear. Don't expect it; the war is over as far as he is concerned. But never have my eyes beheld such happiness, such gratitude, such adoration as I see in his eyes when your letters come. I think the burden of his conversation is you. I never hear him speak of anything else. Your father walks now; and by the time you are here he will be able to drive on Fifth Avenue and in the new Central Park. But he is not the man who left this city at the head of his regiment. His hair and moustache are white as snow; there are a thousand tiny wrinkles on his hands and features. All that heavy colour is gone; only a slight flush remains on his thin face. He is very handsome, Phil. Once, never dreaming of what was true, I thought he resembled you. Do you recollect my saying so once? Even you would recognise the likeness now. He is absorbed, wrapped up in you. . . . I can see, now, that he always has been. How blind we are! How blind!
"Celia, the darling, has not changed one particle. She is the prettiest thing you ever saw, cheerful, clever, courageous, self-possessed, devoted to Stephen, whose leave has been extended and who plays the role of a pale and interesting invalid hero with placid satisfaction to himself, adored and hovered over by Paige and Marye and all their girl friends. But when poor little Camilla, in her deep mourning, appears at the door, he clears out the others with a tyranny characteristic of young men; and I'm somewhat sorry for his mother and sisters. But it's the inevitable; and Camilla is the sweetest thing.
"Celia hears often from Curt, Poor Major Lent! It seems too hard that Camilla should be left so utterly alone in the world. The Major died as he would have wished to die, Curt writes. It was at that terrible Stone Bridge—where God was merciful to me when your squadron galloped across.
"He was found, seated against a tree, stone dead, one hand stiffened over the Mexican war medal at his throat. Curt says his face was calm, almost smiling. Camilla has his sword and medals.
"Did you know that your friend John Casson was dead? I was with him; I did not know he was a friend of yours. He displayed the same patience, the same desire not to be troublesome that so many badly wounded do.
"Letty asked me to say that a zouave of the 5th Regiment, a Mr. Cortlandt, was also killed. So many, many people I knew or had heard of have been killed or have died of disease since the war began. One sees a great many people wearing mourning in the city—crape is so common, on sword-hilts, on arms, veils, gowns, bonnets.
"Letty made the loveliest bride you or I ever beheld. Usually brides do not look their best, but Letty was the most charming, radiant, bewildering creature—and so absurdly young—as though suddenly she had dropped a few years and was again beginning that girlhood which I sometimes thought she had never had.
"Dr. Benton is a darling. He looks twenty years younger and wears a monocle! They are back from their honeymoon, and are planning to offer their services to the great central hospital at Philadelphia.
"Dear, your letter breaking the news to me that Marye Mead was burned when the cavalry burned Edmund Ruffin's house was no news to me. I saw it on fire. But, Philip, there was a fiercer flame consuming me than ever swept that house. I thank God it Is quenched for ever and that my heart and soul, refreshed, made new, bear no scars now of that infernal conflagration.
"I sit here at my window and see below me the folds of the dear flag stirring; in my ears, often, is the noise of drums from the dusty avenue where new regiments are passing on into the unknown—no longer the unknown to us—but the saddest of all truths.