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."
"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."
"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?"