They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss Mayhew's voyage, and
her journey to Genoa, and came as quickly as they could to all those
things which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the town and its
people. "Is it much changed? I suppose it is," she sighed. "The war
changes everything."
"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss Mayhew. "But Patmos _is_
gay,--perfectly delightful. We've got one of the camps there now; and
_such_ times as the girls have with the officers! We have lots of fun
getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops on the parade-ground at the
camp, and going out to see the prisoners,--you never saw such a place."
"The prisoners?" murmured Mrs. Elmore.
"Why, _yes_!" cried Lily, with a gay laugh. "Didn't you know that we had
a prison-camp too? Some of the Southerners look real nice. I pitied
them," she added, with unabated gayety.
"Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore; "but I couldn't realize it,
I suppose, and so I forgot it."
"Yes," pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey's in command. You would never
know by the way he walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't
dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale, and he's perfectly fascinating.
So's Dick Burton, with his empty sleeve; he's one of the recruiting
officers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't think
how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college buildings used
for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was when he was a
student there."
"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find
plenty of volunteers?"
"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of
volunteering is all over."
"No, I didn't know it."
"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it
will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have gone
to Canada. But everybody despises _them_. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I should
think you'd be _so_ glad to have the professor off here, and honorably
out of the way!"
"I'm _dis_honorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not
going to the war," said Elmore.
"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it
_now_! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you,
when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going about
in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more. There
are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets off;
no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the widows
have got married again; and that I don't think _is_ right. But what can
they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. Elmore?"
"Tom Friar's _widow_! Is Tom Friar _dead_?"
"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well,
_she's_ married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says,
that isn't so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing _all_ her
boys,--all five of them? It does seem to bear too hard on _some_
families. And then, when you see every one of those six Armstrongs going
through without a scratch!"
"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets
must look rather dreary."
"_Business_ at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What _has_ Sue been
writing you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in
Patmos before! Everybody is making money, and people that you wouldn't
hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old
college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks
going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now.
You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?"
"Mr. Haskell's clerk?"
"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out of an army contract; and he's going
to marry--the engagement came out just before I left--Bella Stearns."
At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright,--the only posture in which the
fact could be imagined. "Lily!"
"Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in America," triumphed the young
girl. She now put her hand to her mouth and hid a yawn.
"You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you know the way to your room.
You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You
shall commence being at home at once."
"Yes, I _am_ sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her
good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might have
seen that her promptness had a color--or say light--of hesitation in it.
But he only walked up and down the room, after she was gone, in
unheedful distress. "Gay times in America! Good heavens! Is the child
utterly heartless, Celia, or is she merely obtuse?"
"She certainly isn't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. Elmore, who had not
had time to formulate Lily's defence. "But she's excited now, and a
little off her balance. She'll be different to-morrow. Besides, all
America seems changed, and the people with it. We shouldn't have noticed
it if we had stayed there, but we feel it after this absence."
"I never realized it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have
told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times.
Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden gains,
social upheavals,--it is the old, hideous story of war come true of our
day and country. It's terrible!"
"She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. "I don't know exactly
what we shall do with her. Of course, she can't expect the attentions
she's been used to in Patmos, with those young men."