She's going to faint, thought Scarlett, leaping to her feet and catching her arm.

Her face went whiter and her brown eyes dilated enormously.

Melanie's thin hand was at her throat, clutching it as if it was torn with pain, and Scarlett could see the veins beneath the white skin throbbing swiftly.

She stopped so suddenly that Scarlett turned to look at her.

I'd better tell Dilcey to set an extra plate, she said, and warn Mammy not to get the poor thing's clothes off his back too abruptly and��

He'll be hungry, said Will briefly.

I hope this one isn't very hungry.

I thought we were about through with soldiers, she said.

Scarlett followed his gaze and saw a familiar sight, a bearded man coming slowly up the avenue under the cedars, a man clad in a ragged mixture of blue and gray uniforms, head bowe ...

Another soldier.

More company, he said, squinting in the sun.

Will, who had been enticing little Beau across the blanket with the bill during this argument, looked up and, shading his eyes, glanced down the driveway.

I hope when Wade grows up I'll have plenty of greenbacks to give him instead of Confederate trash.

Oh, Melly, don't be sentimental! Paper is paper and we've got little enough of it and I'm tired of hearing Mammy grumble about the cracks in the attic.

It's more than paper��just like this poem said: 'The pledge of a nation that's passed away!'

Scarlett, you mustn't give the money to Mammy to paste in the attic.

Oh, how beautiful! How touching! cried Melanie.

Show it to those who will lend an ear To the tale this trifle will tell Of Liberty, born of patriots' dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

Representing nothing on God's earth now And naught in the waters below it�� As the pledge of nation that's passed away Keep it, dear friend, and show it.

The name is 'Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note,' he said.

Will cleared his throat and read slowly and with difficulty.

On its back was pasted a strip of coarse brown wrapping paper, inscribed in pale homemade ink.

He turned the bill over.

I know Miss Scarlett ain't much on poems but I thought this might interest her.

It's a poem, pasted on the back of this bill.

Well, I don't know nothin' about imperious Caesar, said Will, patiently, but what I've got is in line with what you've just said about Wade, Miss Melly.

He'll be proud of it some day.

Keep it for Wade.

Don't do that, Scarlett.

'Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,' said Melanie with a sad smile.

Then it'll be good for something.

And I think I'll do it.

We've got three thousand dollars of it in Pa's trunk this minute, and Mammy's after me to let her paste it over the holes in the attic walls so the draft won't get her.

If you think Confederate money is cute, Will, I certainly don't, said Scarlett shortly, for the very sight of Confederate money made her mad.

From it, he drew a Confederate bill.

He fumbled in his back pants pocket and brought out the wallet of calico, stiffened with bark, which Carreen had made him.

When I was over to Fayetteville today, said Will, I found somethin' right cute that I thought would interest you ladies and I brought it home.

And he said frankly that another baby would kill her.

Old Dr. Fontaine diagnosed her trouble as female complaint and concurred with Dr. Meade in saying she should never have had Beau.

She did her share of the work uncomplainingly but she was always ailing.

But happy or depressed, she was too thin, too white.

Since Ashley's letter Melanie had divided her time between glowing, singing happiness and anxious longing.

Melanie joined them on the veranda, the baby in her arms, and spreading an old blanket on the floor, set little Beau down to crawl.

Miss Fine Airs will just have to do without gadding for two weeks, thought Scarlett, and we'll have to put up with her nagging and her bawling.

Suellen never missed the opportunity to leave the plantation and give herself airs among people who did not know she weeded the garden and made beds.

Adorned in the assembled best of the family, she called on old friends, heard all the gossip of the County and felt herself again Miss O'Hara of Tara.

Her greatest joy lay in going to Jonesboro or Fayetteville with Will when he drove over on business.

Suellen would be especially grieved at this.

She gave her approval to the plan of hiring out the horse even though it meant the family would be without any means of transportation temporarily.

He was gravely deferential to the vague Gerald but it was to Scarlett that he turned as the real head of the house.