In the excitement of the last part of her journey, and the exhaustion following it, she had almost forgotten her object in coming; but this sight brought it all back. She remembered, too, that she had been dropping into the old way of taking all the burden on her own shoulders; and even in crying out for pain, she recollected the way of comfort. How sweet the restfulness of that recollection! As though a child, wandering from home, lost, weary, and terrified, should all at once see the hearth-light shining before him, and hear the dear familiar voices calling his name. She thought over the lessons learned during that blessed retreat, that Mecca toward which henceforth her thoughts would journey whenever her soul grew faint by the way. The half-forgotten trust came back. Who but He who had set the tangles of this great labyrinth could lead the way out of it? Who but He whose hand had strung the chords of every human heart could ease their straining, and bring back harmony to discord? Where but with Him, the centre of all being, could we look for those who are lost to us on earth?
When, long after sunrise, Mrs. Black entered her visitor's chamber, she found Margaret kneeling by the window, fast asleep, with her head resting on the sill.
There was plenty of news and excitement that morning. All communication with the North was cut off, the President and his family had come rushing in at midnight from their country-seat, and there was fighting going on only a few miles out of town. It was altogether probable that the Confederates would be in the city before night.
Mrs. Black told all this with such an air of satisfaction in the midst of her terror that Margaret made some allowance for embellishment in the story. Evidently the good woman enjoyed a panic, and was willing to be frightened to the very verge of endurance for the sake of having it to tell of afterward. She went about in a sort of delighted agony, gathering up her spoons and forks, and giving little shrieks at the least unusual sound.
"If they should bombard the city, my dear," she said, "we can go down cellar. I have an excellent cellar. It is almost certain that they will come. We must be in a strait when the treasury-clerks come out. And such a sight! They passed here just before I went up to call you, all in their shirt-sleeves, and looking no more like soldiers, dear, than I do this minute. Half of them carried their rifles over the wrong shoulder, and seemed scared to death lest they should go off. And no wonder; for the way the barrels slanted was enough to make you smile, even if there were a bomb-shell whizzing past your nose. The muzzles looked all ways for Sunday, so to speak. There were little boys with them, too. I don't see where their pas and mas were, if they've got any. It's a sin and shame. Do eat some more breakfast, pray! You may as well have a full stomach; for if we should be obliged to hide in the cellar, we might not dare come up to get a mouthful for twenty-four hours. I do hope it won't be a long siege. If they've got to come in, let'em come. I'm sure they would be too much of gentlemen to molest a houseful of defenceless females. As for poor Mr. Black, he doesn't count. Though he is my husband, I have seen braver men, not to speak of women. I had to threaten him, this morning, within an inch of his life, to prevent him from running a Confederate flag out of the window. He keeps one in his trunk, in case it should be needed. He declared he heard firing in the avenue. Bless me! What is that?"
"One of the servants has broken a dish."
"The destructive minxes! But where are you going, dear? Over to the hospital? Oh! they don't admit visitors on Sunday. Even on week-days you can't get in till after the surgeons have gone their rounds, and that is never before ten o'clock. It is military rule, you know; as regular as clock-work. It won't come ten till sixty minutes after nine o'clock, not if you perish. The first time I went in there, the soldier on guard came near running me through with his bayonet, just because I didn't walk in a certain particular road. I tried to reason with him; but you might as well reason with stocks and stones. There was the man in the middle of the road, and there was the point of his bayonet within an inch of my stomacher; and the upshot of the matter was, that I had to turn about and walk in a straight road instead of a curved one, for no earthly reason that I could see. You really cannot get in to-day. Wait till to-morrow, and I will go over with you."
Margaret smoothed on her gloves.
"Mrs. Black," she said, "did you ever hear of the man who said that whenever he saw 'Positively no admittance' posted up anywhere, he always went in there directly?"
"Well," the lady sighed, "I can't say but you may get in. You are your grandfather's granddaughter, and he never said fail. Only, be sure you look your best. You remember the song your mother used to sing about the chief who offered a boatman a silver pound to row him and his bride across the stormy ferry; and the Highland laddie said he would, not for the 'siller bright,' but for the 'winsome lady.' Many's the time I cried to hear your poor mother sing that, and how they all perished in the storm, and the father they were running away from stood on the shore lamenting. Your grandfather would wipe his eyes on the sly, and wait till she had finished every word of it; and then he would speak up and say that she had better be singing the praises of God. May be the officers over there will be like the Highland boatman, and do for you what they would n't do for an ugly old woman like me."