Skirmishing

That first dinner at home! how strange and sweet it was. So
sweet, that I could scarcely hear the note of the little
warning bell down in the bottom of my heart. But mamma had
struck it up stairs, and its vibrations would not quite be
still. Yet there was a wonderful charm in my own home circle.
The circle was made larger in the evening, by the coming in of
two of Ransom's friends, who were also, I saw, friends of my
father and mother. They were two Southern gentlemen, as I
immediately knew them to be; MM. de Saussure and Marshall,
Ransom's worthy compeers in the line of personal appearance
and manner. De Saussure especially; but I liked Marshall best.
This I found out afterward. The conversation that evening
naturally went back to America which I had just come from, and
to the time of my leaving it, and to the news then new there
and but lately arrived here. I had to hear the whole Bull Run
affair talked over from beginning to end and back again. It
was not so pleasant a subject to me as to the rest of the
company; which I suppose made the talk seem long.

"And you were there?" said Mr. de Saussure, suddenly appealing
to me.

"Not at Manasses," I said.

"No, but close by; held in durance in the capital, with
liberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregard
not to have gone in and set you free."

"Free?" said I, smiling. "I was free."