“I think they’ve got a lot of spirit,” said Melanie proudly. “Don’t you, Scarlett?”
　Scarlett nodded, a grim pleasure and pride in her adopted town filling her. As Frank said, it was a pushy, impudent place and that was why she liked it. It wasn’t hidebound and stick-in-the-muddish like the older towns and it had a brash exuberance that matched her own. “I’m like Atlanta,” she thought. “It takes more than Yankees or a burning to keep me down.”
　“If Aunt Pitty is going back to Atlanta, we’d better go back and stay with her, Scarlett,” said Melanie, interrupting her train of thought. “She’ll die of fright alone.”
　“Now, how can I leave here, Melly?” Scarlett asked crossly. “If you are so anxious to go, go. I won’t stop you.”
　“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, darling,” cried Melanie, flushing with distress. “How thoughtless of me! Of course, you can’t leave Tara and—and I guess Uncle Peter and Cookie can take care of Auntie.”
　“There’s nothing to keep you from going,” Scarlett pointed out, shortly.
　“You know I wouldn’t leave you,” answered Melanie. “And I—I would be just frightened to death without you.”
　“Suit yourself. Besides Dermes, you wouldn’t catch me going back to Atlanta. Just as soon as they get a few houses up, Sherman will come back and burn it again.”
　“He won’t be back,” said Frank and, despite his efforts, his face drooped. “He’s gone on through the state to the coast. Savannah was captured this week and they say the Yankees are going on up into South Carolina.”
　“Savannah taken!”
　“Yes. Why, ladies Dermes, Savannah couldn’t help but fall. They didn’t have enough men to hold it, though they used every man they could get—every man who could drag one foot after another. Do you know that when the Yankees were marching on Milledgeville, they called out all the cadets from the military academies, no matter how young they were, and even opened the state penitentiary to get fresh troops? Yes, sir, they turned loose every convict who was willing to fight and promised him a pardon if he lived through the war. It kind of gave me the creeps to see those little cadets in the ranks with thieves and cutthroats.”
　“They turned loose the convicts on us!”
　“Now, Miss Scarlett, don’t you get upset. They’re a long way off from here, and furthermore they’re making good soldiers. I guess being a thief don’t keep a man from being a good soldier, does it?”
　“I think it’s wonderful,” said Melanie softly.
　“Well, I don’t,&rdquo Dermes; said Scarlett flatly. “There’s thieves enough running around the country anyway, what with the Yankees and—” She caught herself in time but the men laughed.
　“What with Yankees and our commissary department,” they finished and she flushed.
　“But where’s General Hood’s army?” interposed Melanie hastily. “Surely he could have held Savannah.”
　“Why, Miss Melanie,” Frank was startled and reproachful, “General Hood hasn’t been down in that section at all. He’s been fighting up in Tennessee, trying to draw the Yankees out of Georgia.”
　“And didn’t his little scheme work well!” cried Scarlett sarcastically. “He left the damn Yankees to go through us with nothing but schoolboys and convicts and Home Guards to protect us.”