About the only people who took no note of the time were the busy sempstresses in the room across the hall, and the first sign of life came from that room. Miss Kittridge, who appeared to have been constituted the messenger of the workers, came out of the room, went down the hall to the back of the house, and presently entered the drawing-room, by the far door.
"Well," she began, seeing Mrs. Varney, "we have just sent off another batch of bandages."
"Did the same man come for them?" asked the mistress of the house.
"Yes, quite a lot. We have all been at the bandages, they say that that is what they need most. So long as we have any linen left we will work at it." She turned to go away, but something in the elder woman's face and manner awakened a slight suspicion in her mind. She stopped, turned, and came back. "You look troubled, Mrs. Varney," she began. "Do you want anything?"
"Is there anything I can do or anything any of us can do?"
"Not a thing, my dear," answered Mrs. Varney, trying to smile and failing dismally.
"Is it Howard?" persisted the other, anxious to be of service.
"He seems to be a little better," returned the woman.
"I am glad to hear it, and if there is anything any of us could do for you, you would certainly tell me."
The elder woman nodded and Miss Kittridge turned decisively away and stepped briskly toward the door. On second thought, there was something she could do, reflected Mrs. Varney, and so she rose, stepped to the door in turn, and called her back.
"Perhaps it would be just as well," she said, "if any of the ladies want to go to let them out the other way. You can open the door into the back hall. We're expecting some one here on important business, you know, and we----"
Mrs. Varney turned with a little sigh of relief and went back to her place by the table, where her work basket sat near to hand. No woman in Richmond was without a work basket with work in it for any length of time during those days. The needle was second only to the bayonet in the support of the dying Confederacy! She glanced at it, but, sure evidence of the tremendous strain under which she laboured, she made no motion to take it up. Instead, after a moment of reflection, she crossed to the wall and pulled the bell rope. In a short time, considering her bulk and unwieldiness, old Martha appeared at the far door.