"Some place - Ball's Bluff, I believe. It was a grand affair."
"How many did they lose?" my mother said.
"Oh, I don't know - some thousands. We lost nothing to speak of. But the thing is, they will lose heart. They will never stand this sort of thing. They have no officers, you know, and they can have no soldiers. They will be obliged to give up."
Words were in my heart, but my lips knew better than to speak them. _Had_ they no officers? Had Christian no soldiers under him? My head was ready to believe it; my heart refused. Yet I thought too I had seen at the North the stuff that soldiers are made of.
"If I were you," said my mother, "I would not let it all be over before I had a part in it."
"The war is not ended yet, Felicia," my father remarked; "and it will take more than a few hard knocks to make them give up."
"They have had nothing but hard knocks, sir, since it began," Ransom cried.
"Your father always takes a medium view of everything," my mother said. "If it depended on him, I believe there would be no war."
"I should have one other vote for peace," papa said, looking at me.
"It is well Daisy was not born a boy!" Ransom said.
"I hope you will not make me wish you had been born a girl," my father replied. "Strength is no more noble when it ceases to be gentle."
"Must not every woman wish for peace?" I said. It was an unhappy attempt at a diversion, and if I had not been in a hurry I should not have made it.
"No," my mother answered, not sharply, but with cold distinctness. "Before the South should submit to the dictation or reproof of Northern boors and fanatics, I would take a musket myself and die in the trenches."
"It is an ugly place to die in, my dear," answered my father.
"See Daisy shiver!" Ransom exclaimed; and he burst into a laugh, "Mamma, Daisy's blood has grown thin at the North. She is not a true Southern woman. There is no fire in you, Daisy."
Not at that moment, for I was sick and cold, as he said. I could not get accustomed to these things, with all the practice I had.
"No fire in her?" said papa, calmly. "There is ammunition enough, Ransom. I don't want to see the fire, for my part. I am glad there is one of us that keeps cool. My darling, you look pale - what is it for?"