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VIRGINIA SCENES IN ’61.

the canopy of young leaves on the forest boughs, and the air was full of thesong of birds and the music of running waters. We knew every mossy pathfar and near in those woods; every tree had been watched and cherished bythose who went before us, and dearer than any other spot on earth was ourtranquil, sweet Yaucluse. Suddenly the shrill whistle of a locomotive struckthe ear, an unwonted sound on Sunday. “ Do you know what that means f ”said one of the older cousins who accompanied the party. “ It is the specialtrain carrying Alexandria volunteers to Manassas , and to-morrow I shallfollow with my company.” Silence fell upon our little band. A cloudseemed to come between us and the sun. It was the begininng of the endtoo soon to come.

The story of one broken circle is the story of another at the outset of sucha war. Before the week was over, the scattering of our household, which noone then believed to be more than temporary, had begun. Living as we didupon ground likely to be in the track of armies gathering to confront eachother, it was deemed advisable to send the children and young girls into aplace more remote from chances of danger. Some weeks later the heads ofthe household, two widowed sisters whose sons were at Manassas , droveaway from their home in their carriage at early morning, having spent theprevious night in company with a half-grown lad digging in the cellar hastygraves for the interment of two boxes of old English silver-ware, heirloomsin the family, for which there was no time to provide otherwise. Althoughthe enemy were long encamped immediately above it after the house wasburnt the following year, this silver was found there when the war had ended;it was lying loose in the earth, the boxes having rotted away.

The point at which our family reunited within the Confederate lines wasBristoe, the station next beyond Manassas , a cheerless railway inn; a part ofthe premises was used as a country grocery store; and there quarters weresecured for us with a view to being near the army. By this time all ourkith and kin of fighting age had joined the volunteers. One cannot pic-ture accommodations more forlorn than these eagerly taken for us and forother families attracted to Bristoe by the same powerful magnet. The sum-mer sun poured its burning rays upon whitewashed walls unshaded by a tree.Our bedrooms were almost uninhabitable by day or night, our fare the plain-est. From the windows we beheld oidy a flat, uncultivated country, crossedby red-clay roads, then ankle-deep in dust. We learned to look for all excite-ment to the glittering lines of railway track, along which continually thun-dered trains bound to and from the front. It was impossible to allow such atrain to pass without running out upon the platform to salute it, for in thisway we greeted many an old friend or relative buttoned up in the smart grayuniform, speeding with high hope to the scene of coming conflict. Such shoutsas went up from sturdy throats while we stood waving hands, handkerchiefs,or the rough woolen garments we .were at work upon ! Then fairly awoke thespirit that made of Southern women the inspiration of Southern men through-out the war. Most of the young fellows we knew and were cheering onwardwore the uniform of privates, and for the right to wear it had left homes of