But for the first time she wearied a little of
her courtiers. She found their compliments insipid and her repartees
were slow. Her thoughts were wandering to that poor home where all
undeservedly she had been received as an angel of light; and her
anxieties were with the messenger stumbling along the half broken road
to Lee to carry the warning. When, at last, Squire Edwards proposed
that all should fill their punch-glasses and drain to the success of
the morrow's expedition, she set down hers untasted, passing off her
omission with some excuse. That night toward morning, though it was
yet pitch dark, she was awakened by the noise of opening doors and
men's boots, and loud talk; and afterwards hearing a heavy, jarring
sound, she looked out the window and descried in the road, a long
black column moving rapidly along, noiseless save for now and then a
hoarse word of command. It was the expedition setting out for Lee. The
impressiveness of this silent, formidable departure gave her a new
sense of the responsibility she had taken on herself in frustrating
the design of so many grave and weighty men, and interfering with
issues of life and death. And then for the first time a dreadful
thought occurred to her.
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