there against their inclination and against his, under uncomfortable conditions, for a week.
Meanwhile, at Burleigh we breathed freely when we saw our dear father ride off. The overseer was an easy-going man, who had not, like him, helped to carry on the war, and he expected to pass unnoticed as an obscure person and a non-combatant. He was to have control of things in the master's absence.
It was not long before the news came that a company of eighty Federals, from General Grant's army, had reached the plantation, and had encamped in a field on the Tallahala Creek, only a half-mile from the house. They were near enough for us to hear the reveille in the morning and the tattoo at night.
Very soon some of them rode up, by twos and threes, and came into the house. At first they were civil, but each day they grew more and more rough, and finally they became violent. They went into every room from the garret to the cellar, and through every closet, wardrobe, bureau, and trunk, and carried off everything that struck their fancy. They found several hundred dollars in the iron safe, and thought it a fortune. They looked like the dregs of some city. We have thought they must have been the camp-followers of General Grant's army, and not his regular enlisted men. They were scarcely in uniform; perhaps a blue jacket on one and trousers on another, the rest of the garb being of any hue or cut other than a military one.
When keys were not produced at once, they forced the locks. Lelia's doll-trunk, only a few inches long, caught the eye of one of them.
"Do not break the child's doll-trunk. It has nothing in it but doll-clothes," one of her sisters said, when the key could not be found.
"It is big enough to hold a pistol," he said, as he burst the top of the toy off. A broken open desk revealed the love-letters of one of the girls, and the perusal of these seemed amusing work.
They found the wine-cellar, and drank until they
