"There is one less!" she answered grimly.
"But one less makes very little difference for the cause, mamma."
"I wish there were a dozen then," said she. "I wish all were shot, that have the faculty of leading this rabble of numbers and making them worth something."
But I was getting, I, to have a little pride in Northern blood. I said nothing, of course.
"You are just a traitor, Daisy, I believe," said mamma. "You read of all that is going on, and you know that Ransom and Preston Gary are in it, and you do not care; except you care on the wrong side. But I tell you this, - nothing that calls itself Yankee shall ever have anything to do with me or mine so long as I live. I will see you dead first, Daisy."
There was no answer to be made to this either. It only sank down into my heart; and I knew I had no help in this world.
The question immediately pressed itself upon our attention, where would we go? Dr. Sandford proposed Melbourne; and urged that in the first place we should avail ourselves of the hospitalities of his sister's house in that neighbourhood, most generously tendered us, till he could be at leisure to make arrangements at our old home. Just now he was under the necessity of returning immediately to Washington, where he had one or more hospitals in charge; indeed he left us that same night of our landing; but before he went he earnestly pressed his sister's invitation upon my mother, and promised that so soon as the settlement of the country's difficulties should set him free, he would devote himself to the care of us and Melbourne till we were satisfactorily established.
"And I am in hopes it will not be very long now," he said aside to me. "I think the country has got the right man at last; and that is what we have been waiting for. Grant says he will fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer; and I think the end is coming."
Mamma would give no positive answer to the doctor's instances; she thanked him and talked round the subject, and he was obliged to go away without any contentment of her giving. Alone with me, she spoke out: -
"I will take no Yankee civilities, Daisy. I will be under no obligation to one of them. And I could not endure to be in the house of one of them, if it were conferring instead of receiving obligation."