The odious partisanship and ready calumny of her own compatriots gave a
strange bent to her mind in dealing with another problem. Vincent, too,
had suffered from the wretched battle of his family's enemies. After
all, might he not be right? Might the war not be a mere game of havoc
played by the base and unscrupulous? Country, right or wrong, had been
her family watchword since her ancestor flew to fight the British
invaders. It was Jack's watchword, too, and his conduct in battle should
put these wretches to shame. She thought more kindly of the rebel in
this vengeful mood, and straightway ran up-stairs, where, sitting by the
open window and lulled by the piping of the robins, she took the letter
from its pretty covert, read it again with heightened color, and,
smiling rosily at the face she saw in the mirror, raised it to her lips
and sighed softly.

When a whole people have but one thought in mind that thought becomes
mania. Acredale had but this one thought, "Beat rebellion and punish
rebels." "On to Richmond!" was the cry, and forming ranks to go there
the business that everybody took in hand. These had been great days to
Jack. He began to feel something of the burden that a feudal chief must
have borne at the summoning of the clans. So soon as it spread in the
country-side that "young Sprague had 'listed," all the "ageable" sons of
the soil were fired with a burning zeal to take up arms and bear him
company. Boys from sixteen to twenty these were for the most part, and
there was bitter grumbling when Jack firmly refused to take the names of
any under twenty. Some he solaced with a gun, a pistol, or such object
as he knew was dear to the country boy's heart. They returned to the
relieved hearthstone loud in Jack's praise, having his promise to enlist
them when they were twenty, if the war lasted so long; and if the wise
smiled at this, wasn't it well known that the great army now gathering