Mr. Dinwiddie came back with a business step. I looked up, but I would not fear. He laid a pile of letters and papers before papa, and then sat down to the consideration of some of his own.
"What is doing at home, Dinwiddie?" papa asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "You want me to save you the trouble?"
"The news is of several advantages gained by the Yankees."
"That won't last," said papa. "But there are always fluctuations in these things."
"Back in March," Mr. Dinwiddie went on, "there are reported two engagements in which our troops came off second best - at Newhern and at Winchester. It is difficult perhaps to know the exact truth - the papers on the two sides hold such different language. But the sixth of April there was a furious battle at Pittsburg Landing, our men headed by Beauregard, Polk and Sidney Johnston, when our men got the better very decidedly; the next day came up a sweeping reinforcement of the enemy under Grant and others, and took back the fortune of war into their own hands, it seems."
"Perhaps that is doubtful too," observed my father.
"I see Beauregard asked permission to bury his dead."
"Terribly many. There were large numbers engaged, and fierce fighting."
So they _can_ do it, I said to myself, amid all my heart- beating.
"There will be of course, some variation of success," said my father.
"The pendulum is swung all to one side, in these last news," said Mr. Dinwiddie.
"Handsomely done, after a bombardment of thirty hours."
"The House of Representatives has passed a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District."
"Oh, I am glad!" I exclaimed. "_That_ is good."
"Is that _all_ you think good in the news?" said Mr. Dinwiddie a little pointedly.
"No, papa; not _I_ surely. I stand by the President and the Country."
"Then _we_ are rebels, Dinwiddie," said papa, half wearily. "Half the country is playing the fool, that is clear; and the whole must suffer."
"But the half where the seat of war is, suffers the most."
"That will not last," said papa. "I know the South."
"I wonder if we know the North," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Farragut has run the gauntlet of the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi and taken New Orleans."
"Taken New Orleans!" my father exclaimed again, rising half up as he lay on the cushions of the divan.