Mrs. Vennard rocked in her miniature sitting-room at one side, contentedly matching patchwork. Little Jane Vennard, her step-daughter,—usually at work in the mills, but, since their close, making herself busy at home, whither she had brought a cookery-book through which Ray declared he expected to eat his way,—bustled about from room to room. Ray sat before the fire in the kitchen and toasted some savory morsel suspended on a string athwart the blaze.
"Where have you been, Ray?" said Vivia, approaching, with her glowing cheeks, her sparkling eyes. "And what are you doing now?"
"Trying camp-life again," replied Ray, looking up at her in a fixed admiration.
"I've had a letter from Beltran."
"Oh! where is he?" cried Ray.
"Beltran is in camp."
"And where?"
"Perhaps on the Rio Grande, perhaps on the Potomac."
"Do you mean to say," cried Ray, springing up, while string and all fell into the coals, "that Beltran, my brother"—
"Is a Rebel."