Finding Hugh

Not long could Mrs. Worthington stay contentedly at Snowdon, and after a
time Alice started with her and Lulu for Washington, taking Sam also,
partly because he begged so hard to go, and partly because she did not
care to trouble her friends with the old man, who seemed a perfect child
in his delight at the prospect of seeing "Massah Hugh." But to see him
was not so easy a matter. Indeed, he seemed farther off at Washington
than he had done at Spring Bank, and Alice sometimes questioned the
propriety of having left Kentucky at all. They were not very comfortable
at Washington, and as Mrs. Worthington pined for the pure country air,
Alice managed at last to procure board for herself, Mrs. Worthington,
Lulu and Sam, at the house of a friend whose acquaintance she had made
at the time of her visit to Virginia. It was some distance from
Washington, and so near to Bull Run that when at last the second
disastrous battle was fought in that vicinity, the roar of the artillery
was distinctly heard, and they who listened to the noise of that bloody
conflict knew just when the battle ceased, and thought with tearful
anguish of the poor, maimed, suffering wretches left to bleed and die
alone. They knew Hugh must have been in the battle, and Mrs.
Washington's anxiety amounted almost to insanity, while Alice, with
blanched cheek and compressed lip, could only pray silently that he
might be spared, and might yet come back to them. Only Sam thought of
acting.