Enna had it all arranged, and simply made the
announcement to me, probably with little idea of the relief she was
affording."
"It is a great relief," said Elsie. "Aunt Lora's are better trained, and
will not----"
"They do not remain with us; Pinegrove is still habitable, and they are
here only for to-day to welcome us home."
Elsie's face lighted up with pleasure. "And we shall have our own dear
home to ourselves, after all! Ah, how foolish I have been to so borrow
trouble."
"I have shared the folly," her father said, smiling; "but let us be wiser
for the future. They have already retired to their own quarters, and you
will see no more of them for the present. My father remains with us."
Mrs. Howard was deeply mortified by the conduct of her sisters, but tried
to excuse them to those whom they were treating with such rudeness and
ingratitude.
"Louise and Enna are very bitter," she said, talking with Rose and Elsie
in the drawing-room after tea; "but they have suffered much in the loss of
their husbands and our brothers; to say nothing of property. Sherman's
soldiers were very lawless--some of them, I mean; and they were not all
Americans--and inflicted much injury. Enna was very rude and exasperating
to the party who visited Roselands, and was roughly handled in
consequence; robbed of her watch and all her jewelry and money.
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