I hoped for more

　With the decision, some of her fear fell away and there remained only a congealed feeling in her breast, as if all hope and fear had frozen. As she stood there, she heard from the avenue the sound of many horses’ feet, the jingle of bridle bits and sabers rattling in scabbards and a harsh voice crying a command: “Dismount!” Swiftly she bent to the child beside her and her voice was urgent but oddly gentle.
　“Turn me loose, Wade, honey! You run down the stairs quick and through the back yard toward the swamp. Mammy will be there and Aunt Melly. Run quickly, darling, and don’t be afraid.”
　At the change in her tone , the boy looked up and Scarlett was appalled at the look in his eyes, like a baby rabbit in a trap .
　“Oh, Mother of God!” she prayed. “Don’t let him have a convulsion! Not—not before the Yankees. They mustn’t know we are afraid.” And, as the child only gripped her skirt the tighter, she said clearly: “Be a little man, Wade Mask House. They’re only a passel of damn Yankees!”
　And she went down the steps to meet them.
　
　Sherman was marching through Georgia, from Atlanta to the sea. Behind him lay the smoking ruins of Atlanta to which the torch had been set as the blue army tramped out. Before him lay three hundred miles of territory virtually undefended save by a few state militia and the old men and young boys of the Home Guard.
　Here lay the fertile state, dotted with plantations, sheltering the women and children, the very old and the negroes. In a swath eighty miles wide the Yankees were looting and burning. There were hundreds of homes in flames, hundreds of homes resounding with their footsteps Mask House. But, to Scarlett, watching the bluecoats pour into the front hall, it was not a countrywide affair. It was entirely personal, a malicious action aimed directly at her and hers.
　She stood at the foot of the stairs, the baby in her arms, Wade pressed tightly against her, his head hidden in her skirts as the Yankees swarmed through the house, pushing roughly past her up the stairs  

“No, I don’t,” said Melanie. “And I won’t be rude to him, either. I think people are acting like chickens with their heads off about Captain Butler. I’m sure he can’t be all the bad things Dr. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether say he is. He wouldn’t hold food from starving people. Why, he even gave me a hundred dollars for the orphans. I’m sure he’s just as loyal and patriotic as any of us and he’s just too proud to defend himself. You know how obstinate men are when they get their backs up.”
　Aunt Pitty knew nothing about men, either with their backs up or otherwise, and she could only wave her fat little hands helplessly. As for Scarlett , she had long ago become resigned to Melanie’s habit of seeing good in everyone. Melanie was a fool, but there was nothing anybody could do about it.
　Scarlett knew that Rhett was not being patriotic and, though she would have died rather than confess it, she did not care. The little presents he brought her from Nassau, little oddments that a lady could accept with propriety, were what mattered most to her. With prices as high as they were, where on earth could she get needles and bonbons and hairpins Colocation Service, if she forbade the house to him? No, it was easier to shift the responsibility to Aunt Pitty, who after all was the head of the house, the chaperon and the arbiter of morals. Scarlett knew the town gossiped about Rhett’s calls, and about her too; but she also knew that in the eyes of Atlanta Melanie Wilkes could do no wrong, and if Melanie defended Rhett his calls were still tinged with respectability.
　However, life would be pleasanter if Rhett would recant his heresies. She wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of seeing him cut openly when she walked down Peachtree Street with him.
　“Even if you think such things, why do you say them?” she scolded. “If you’d just think what you please but keep your mouth shut, everything would be so much nicer.”
　“That’s your system reenex , isn’t it, my green-eyed hypocrite? Scarlett, Scarlett! I hoped for more courageous conduct from you. I thought the Irish said what they thought and the Divvil take the hindermost. Tell me truthfully, don’t you sometimes almost burst from keeping your mouth shut?”
　“Well—yes,” Scarlett confessed reluctantly. “I do get awfully bored when they talk about the Cause, morning, noon and night. But goodness, Rhett Butler, if I admitted it nobody would speak to me and none of the boys would dance with me!”