In his hand before the war. About the blue cloth, when it comes to

a choice between having holes in your britches or patching them

with pieces of a captured Yankee uniform--well, there just isn't

any choice. And as for looking like a ragamuffin, you should thank

your stars your husband didn't come home barefooted. Last week my

old boots wore completely out, and I would have come home with

sacks tied on my feet if we hadn't had the good luck to shoot two

Yankee scouts. The boots of one of them fitted me perfectly."

He stretched out his long legs in their scarred high boots for them

to admire.

"And the boots of the other scout didn't fit me," said Cade.

"They're two sizes too small and they're killing me this minute.

But I'm going home in style just the same."

"And the selfish swine won't give them to either of us," said Tony.

"And they'd fit our small, aristocratic Fontaine feet perfectly.

Hell's afire, I'm ashamed to face Mother in these brogans. Before

the war she wouldn't have let one of our darkies wear them."

"Don't worry," said Alex, eyeing Cade's boots. "We'll take them

off of him on the train going home. I don't mind facing Mother but

I'm da--I mean I don't intend for Dimity Munroe to see my toes

sticking out."

"Why, they're my boots. I claimed them first," said Tony,

beginning to scowl at his brother; and Melanie, fluttering with

fear at the possibility of one of the famous Fontaine quarrels,

interposed and made peace.

"I had a full beard to show you girls," said Ashley, ruefully

rubbing his face where half-healed razor nicks still showed. "It

was a beautiful beard and if I do say it myself, neither Jeb Stuart

nor Nathan Bedford Forrest had a handsomer one. But when we got to

Richmond, those two scoundrels," indicating the Fontaines, "decided

that as they were shaving their beards, mine should come off too.

They got me down and shaved me, and it's a wonder my head didn't

come off along with the beard. It was only by the intervention of

Evan and Cade that my mustache was saved."

"Snakes, Mrs. Wilkes! You ought to thank me. You'd never have

recognized him and wouldn't have let him in the door," said Alex.

"We did it to show our appreciation of his talking the provost

guard out of putting us in jail. If you say the word, we'll take

the mustache off for you, right now."

"Oh, no, thank you!" said Melanie hastily, clutching Ashley in a

frightened way, for the two swarthy little men looked capable of

any violence. "I think it's perfectly lovely."

"That's love," said the Fontaines, nodding gravely at each other.

When Ashley went into the cold to see the boys off to the depot in

Aunt Pitty's carriage, Melanie caught Scarlett's arm.

"Isn't his uniform dreadful? Won't my coat be a surprise? Oh, if

only I had enough cloth for britches too!"

That coat for Ashley was a sore subject with Scarlett, for she

wished so ardently that she and not Melanie were bestowing it as a

Christmas gift. Gray wool for uniforms was now almost literally

more priceless than rubies, and Ashley was wearing the familiar

homespun. Even butternut was now none too plentiful, and many of

the soldiers were dressed in captured Yankee uniforms which had

been turned a dark-brown color with walnut-shell dye. But Melanie,

by rare luck, had come into possession of enough gray broadcloth to

make a coat--a rather short coat but a coat just the same. She had

nursed a Charleston boy in the hospital and when he died had

clipped a lock of his hair and sent it to his mother, along with

the scant contents of his pockets and a comforting account of his

last hours which made no mention of the torment in which he died.

A correspondence had sprung up between them and, learning that

Melanie had a husband at the front, the mother had sent her the

length of gray cloth and brass buttons which she had bought for her

dead son. It was a beautiful piece of material, thick and warm and

with a dull sheen to it, undoubtedly blockade goods and undoubtedly

very expensive. It was now in the hands of the tailor and Melanie

was hurrying him to have it ready by Christmas morning. Scarlett

would have given anything to be able to provide the rest of the

uniform, but the necessary materials were simply not to be had in

Atlanta.

She had a Christmas present for Ashley, but it paled in

insignificance beside the glory of Melanie's gray coat. It was a

small "housewife," made of flannel, containing the whole precious

pack of needles Rhett had brought her from Nassau, three of her

linen handkerchiefs, obtained from the same source, two spools of

thread and a small pair of scissors. But she wanted to give him

something more personal, something a wife could give a husband, a

shirt, a pair of gauntlets, a hat. Oh, yes, a hat by all means.

That little flat-topped forage cap Ashley was wearing looked

ridiculous. Scarlett had always hated them. What if Stonewall

Jackson had worn one in preference to a slouch felt? That didn't

make them any more dignified looking. But the only hats obtainable