They could not have found a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet
people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham
showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to
the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and
best uniforms be turned over to her.
"I can make them look fresh," she insisted, "and your appearance must be
the finest possible. No, don't refuse again. It's a pleasure to me to
do it. When I look at you two, so young and strong and so honest in
manner and speech, I wish that I had sons too, and then again I'm glad I
have not."
"Why not, Mrs. Lanham?" asked Harry.
"Because I'd be in deadly fear lest I lose them. They'd go to the war--
I couldn't help it--and they'd surely be killed."
"We won't grieve over losing what we've never had," smiled Mr. Lanham.
"That's morbid."
Harry and Dalton did their best to answer all the questions of their
hosts, who they knew would take no pay. The interest of both Mr. and
Mrs. Lanham was increased when they found that their young guests were on
the staff of General Lee and before that had been on the staff of the
great Stonewall Jackson. These two names were mighty in the South,
untouched by any kind of malice or envy, and with legends to cluster
around them as the years passed.
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