The War Department Telegraph Office had once been a handsome apartment, one of those old-fashioned, heavily corniced, marble-manteled, low-windowed, double-doored rooms in a public building. It was now in a state of extreme dilapidation, the neglected and forlorn condition somehow being significant of the moribund Confederacy in which practically everything was either dead or dying but the men and women.

A large double door in one corner gave entrance to a corridor. The doors were of handsome mahogany, but they had been kicked and battered until varnish and polish had both disappeared and they looked as dilapidated as the cob-webbed corners and the broken mouldings. On the other side of the room, three long French windows gave entrance to a shallow balcony of cast iron fantastically moulded, which hung against the outer wall. Beyond this the observer peering through the dusty panes could discern the large white pillars of the huge porch which overhung the front of the building. Further away beyond the shadow of the porch were visible the lights of the sleeping town, seen dimly in the bright moonlight.

The handsome furniture which the room had probably once contained, had been long since displaced by the rude telegraph equipment and the heavy plaster cornices and mouldings were sadly marred by telegraph wires which ran down the walls to the tables, rough pine affairs, which carried the instruments. There were two of these tables, each with a telegraph key at either end. One of them stood near the centre of the room, and the other some distance away was backed up against the fine old marble mantel, chipped, battered, ruined like the rest of the room. For the rest, the apartment contained a desk, shelves with the batteries on them, and half a dozen chairs of the commonest and cheapest variety. The floor was bare, dusty, and tobacco stained. The sole remnant of the ancient glory of the room was a large handsome old clock on the wall above the mantel, the hands of which pointed to the hour of ten.

But if the room itself was in a dingy and even dirty condition, the occupants were very much alive. One young man, Lieutenant Allison, sat at the table under the clock, and another, Lieutenant Foray, at the table in the centre of the room. Both were busy sending or receiving messages. The instruments kept up a continuous clicking, heard distinctly above the buzz of conversation which came from half a dozen youngsters, scarcely more than boys, grouped together at the opposite side of the room, waiting to take to the various offices of the Department, or to the several officials of the government, the messages which were constantly being handed out to them by the two military operators.

In the midst of this busy activity there came the noise of drums, faintly at first, but presently growing clearer and louder, while the tramp of many feet sounded in the street below.

“What’s that?” asked one messenger of the other.

“I don’t know,” was the answer, “troops of some kind. I’ll look out and see.”

He stepped to one of the long windows, opened it, and went out on the balcony. The other young fellows clustered at his back or peered through the other windows.

“It’s the Richmond Greys,” said the observer outside.

There was an outburst of exclamations from the room, except from the operators, who had no time to spare from their work.

“Yes, that’s what they are. You can see their uniforms. They must be sending them down to the lines at Petersburg,” said another.

“Well, I don’t believe they would send the Greys out unless there was something going on to-night,” observed a third.

“To-night, why, good heavens, it’s as quiet as a tomb,” broke in a fourth. “I don’t hear a sound from the front.”

“That’s probably what’s worrying them. It is so damn unusual,” returned the first messenger.

“Things have come to a pretty pass if the Grandfathers of the Home Guard have got to go to the front,” remarked another.

“Following in the footsteps of their grandsons,” said the first. “I wish I could go. I hate this business of carrying telegrams and——”

“Messenger here!” cried Lieutenant Foray, folding up a message and inserting it in its envelope.

The nearest youngster detached himself from the group while all of them turned away from the windows, stepped to the side of the officer, and saluted.

“War Department,” said Foray tersely. “Tell the Secretary it’s from General Lee, and here’s a duplicate which you are to give to the President.”

“Very good, sir,” said the messenger, taking the message and turning away.

As he passed out of the door, an orderly entered the room, stepped to the side of Lieutenant Foray, the senior of the two officers on duty, clicked his heels together, and saluted.

“Secretary’s compliments, sir, and he wants to know if there is anything from General Lee,” he said.

“My compliments to the Secretary,” returned the Lieutenant. “I have just sent a message to his office with a duplicate for the President.”

“The President’s with the Cabinet yet, sir,” returned the orderly. “He didn’t go home. The Secretary’s there, too. They want an operator right quick to take down some cipher telegrams.”

Lieutenant Foray looked over to his subordinate.

“Got anything on, Charlie?” he called out.

“Not right now,” answered Lieutenant Allison.

“Well, go over with the orderly to the Cabinet room and take down their ciphers. Hurry back though,” said Foray as Allison slipped on his coat—both officers had been working in their shirt sleeves—“we need you here. We are so short-handed in the office now that I don’t know how we are going to get through to-night. I can’t handle four instruments, and——”

“I will do my best,” said Allison, turning away rapidly.

He bowed as he did so to a little party which at that moment entered the room through the door, obstructing his passage. There were two very spick and span young officers with Miss Caroline Mitford between them, while just behind loomed the ponderous figure of old Martha.

“You wait in the hall right here, Martha; I won’t be long,” said Caroline, pausing a moment to let the others precede her.

The two young men stopped on either side of the door and waited for her.

“Miss Mitford,” said the elder, “this is the Department Telegraph Office.”

“Thank you,” said Caroline, entering the room with only the briefest of acknowledgments of the profound bows of her escorts.

She was evidently very much agitated and troubled over what she was about to attempt. The two young men followed her as she stepped down the long room.

“I am afraid you have gone back on the Army, Miss Mitford,” said one of them pleasantly.

“Gone back on the Army, why?” asked Caroline mystified.

“Seems like we should have a salute as you went by.”

“Oh, yes,” said the girl.

She raised her hand and saluted in a perfunctory and absent-minded manner, then turned away from them. She nodded to the messengers, some of whom she knew. One of them, who knew her best, stepped forward.

“Good-evening, Miss Mitford, could we do anything in the office for you to-night?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,—you can. I want to send a—a telegram.”

The other of the young officers who had escorted her, who had remained silent, now entered the conversation.

“Have you been receiving some bad news, Miss Mitford?” he asked sympathetically.

“Oh, no.”

“Maybe some friend of yours has gone to the front, and——” interposed the first officer.

“Well, supposing he had,” said Caroline, “would you call that bad news?”

“I don’t know as you would exactly like to——”

“Let me tell you,” said Caroline, “as you don’t seem to know, that all my friends have gone to the front.”

There was an emphasis on the pronoun which should have warned the young soldier what was about to occur, but he rushed blindly to his doom.

“I hope not all, Miss Mitford,” he replied.

“Yes, all,” rejoined Caroline, making the “all” very emphatic, “for if they did not they wouldn’t be my friends.”

“But some of us are obliged to stay here to take care of you, you know,” contributed the other young man.

“Well, there are altogether too many of you trying to take care of me,” said Caroline saucily, with some return of her usual lightness, “and you are all discharged.”

“Do you mean that, Miss Mitford?”

“I certainly do.”

“Well, I suppose if we are really discharged, we will have to go,” returned the other.

“Yes,” said his companion regretfully, “but we are mighty sorry to see you in such low spirits.”

“Would you like to put me in real good spirits, you two?” asked Caroline, resolved to read these young dandies who were staying at home a lesson.

“Wouldn’t we!” they both cried together. “There’s nothing we would like better.”

“Well, I will tell you just what to do then,” returned the girl gravely and with deep meaning.

Everybody in the room, with the exception of Lieutenant Foray, was now listening intently.

“Start right out this very night,” said the girl, “and don’t stop till you get to where my real friends are, lying in trenches and ditches and earth-works between us and the Yankee guns.”

“But really, Miss Mitford,” began one, his face flushing at her severe rebuke, “you don’t absolutely mean that.”

“So far as we are concerned,” said one of the messengers, including his companions with a sweep of his hand, “we’d like nothing better, but they won’t let us go, and——”

“I know they won’t,” said Caroline, “but so far as you two gentlemen are concerned, I really mean it. Go and fight the Yankees a few days and lie in ditches a few nights until those uniforms you’ve got on look as if they might have been of some use to somebody. If you are so mighty anxious to do something for me, that is what you can do. It is the only thing I want, it is the only thing anybody wants.”

“Messenger here!” cried Lieutenant Foray as the two young officers, humiliated beyond expression by the taunts of the impudent young maiden, backed away and finally managed to make an ungraceful exit through the open door, followed by the titters of the messengers, who took advantage of the presence of the young girl to indulge in this grave breach of discipline.

“Messenger!” cried Foray impatiently.

“Here, sir,” came the answer.

“Commissary General’s office!” was the injunction with which Foray handed the man the telegram.

He looked up at the same time, and with a great start of surprise caught sight of Caroline at the far end of the long room.

“Lieutenant Foray,” began the girl.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Mitford,” said the operator, scrambling to his feet and making a frantic effort to get into his coat. “I heard some one come in, but I was busy with an important message and didn’t appreciate that——”

“No, never mind, don’t put on your coat,” said Caroline. “I came on business, and——”

“You want to send a telegram?” asked the Lieutenant.

“Yes.”

“I am afraid we can’t do anything for you here, Miss Mitford, this is the War Department Official Telegraph Office, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Caroline, “but it is the only way to send it where I want it to go, and I——”

At that moment the clicking of a key called Lieutenant Foray away.

“Excuse me,” he said, stepping quickly to his table.

Miss Mitford, who had never before been in a telegraph office, was very much mystified by the peremptory manner in which the officer had cut her short, but she had nothing to do but wait. Presently the message was transcribed, another messenger was called.

“Over to the Department, quick as you can go. They are waiting for it,” said Foray. “Now, what was it you wanted me to do, Miss Mitford?”

“Just to—to send a telegram,” faltered Caroline.

“It’s private business, is it not?” said Foray.

“Yes, it is strictly private.”

“Then you will have to get an order from——”

“That is what I thought,” said Caroline, “so here it is.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before,” returned Foray, taking the paper. “Oh,—Major Selwin——”

“Yes, he—he’s one of my friends.”

“It’s all right then,” interposed the Lieutenant, who was naturally very businesslike and peremptory.

He pushed a chair to the other side of the table, placed a small sheet of paper on the table in front of her, and shoved the pen and ink conveniently to hand.

“You can write there, Miss Mitford,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Caroline, looking rather ruefully at the tiny piece of paper which had been provided for her.

Paper was a scarce article then, and every scrap was precious. She decided that such a piece was not sufficient for her purposes, and when Lieutenant Foray’s back was turned she took a larger piece of paper of sufficient capacity to contain her important message, to the composition of which she proceeded with much difficulty and many pauses and sighs.