Into the sky as if incredulous that it was clear and blue instead

of murky and heavy with scudding clouds. Everywhere, women

gathered in knots, huddled in groups on front porches, on

sidewalks, even in the middle of the streets, telling each other

that no news is good news, trying to comfort each other, trying to

present a brave appearance. But hideous rumors that Lee was

killed, the battle lost, and enormous casualty lists coming in,

fled up and down the quiet streets like darting bats. Though they

tried not to believe, whole neighborhoods, swayed by panic, rushed

to town, to the newspapers, to headquarters, pleading for news, any

news, even bad news.

Crowds formed at the depot, hoping for news from incoming trains,

at the telegraph office, in front of the harried headquarters,

before the locked doors of the newspapers. They were oddly still

crowds, crowds that quietly grew larger and larger. There was no

talking. Occasionally an old man's treble voice begged for news,

and instead of inciting the crowd to babbling it only intensified

the hush as they heard the oft-repeated: "Nothing on the wires yet

from the North except that there's been fighting." The fringe of

women on foot and in carriages grew greater and greater, and the

heat of the close-packed bodies and dust rising from restless feet

were suffocating. The women did not speak, but their pale set

faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louder than wailing.

There was hardly a house in town that had not sent away a son, a

brother, a father, a lover, a husband, to this battle. They all

waited to hear the news that death had come to their homes. They

expected death. They did not expect defeat. That thought they

dismissed. Their men might be dying, even now, on the sun-parched

grass of the Pennsylvania hills. Even now the Southern ranks might

be falling like grain before a hailstorm, but the Cause for which

they fought could never fall. They might be dying in thousands

but, like the fruit of the dragon's teeth, thousands of fresh men

In gray and butternut with the Rebel yell on their lips would

spring up from the earth to take their places. Where these men

would come from, no one knew. They only knew, as surely as they

knew there was a just and jealous God in Heaven, that Lee was

miraculous and the Army of Virginia invincible.

Scarlett, Melanie and Miss Pittypat sat in front of the Daily

Examiner office in the carriage with the top back, sheltered

beneath their parasols. Scarlett's hands shook so that her parasol

wobbled above her head, Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in

her round face like a rabbit's, but Melanie sat as though carved of

stone, her dark eyes growing larger and larger as time went by.

She made only one remark in two hours, as she took a vial of

smelling salts from her reticule and handed it to her aunt, the

only time she had ever spoken to her, in her whole life, with

anything but tenderest affection.

"Take this, Auntie, and use it if you feel faint. I warn you if

you do faint you'll just have to faint and let Uncle Peter take you

home, for I'm not going to leave this place till I hear about--till