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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crisis, Volume 2, by Winston Churchill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Crisis, Volume 2
+
+Author: Winston Churchill
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5389]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRISIS, VOLUME 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BELLEGARDE
+
+Miss Virginia Carvel came down the steps in her riding-habit. And Ned,
+who had been waiting in the street with the horses, obsequiously held his
+hand while his young mistress leaped into Vixen's saddle. Leaving the
+darkey to follow upon black Calhoun, she cantered off up the street,
+greatly to the admiration of the neighbor. They threw open their windows
+to wave at her, but Virginia pressed her lips and stared straight ahead.
+She was going out to see the Russell girls at their father's country
+place on Bellefontaine Road, especially to proclaim her detestation for a
+certain young Yankee upstart. She had unbosomed herself to Anne Brinsmade
+and timid Eugenie Renault the day before.
+
+It was Indian summer, the gold and purple season of the year. Frost had
+come and gone. Wasps were buzzing confusedly about the eaves again,
+marvelling at the balmy air, and the two Misses Russell, Puss and Emily,
+were seated within the wide doorway at needlework when Virginia
+dismounted at the horseblock.
+
+"Oh, Jinny, I'm so glad to see you," said Miss Russell. "Here's Elise
+Saint Simon from New Orleans. You must stay all day and to-night."
+
+"I can't, Puss," said Virginia, submitting impatiently to Miss Russell's
+warm embrace. She was disappointed at finding the stranger. "I only came
+--to say that I am going to have a birthday party in a few weeks. You must
+be sure to come, and bring your guest."
+
+Virginia took her bridle from Ned, and Miss Russell's hospitable face
+fell.
+
+"You're not going?" she said.
+
+"To Bellegarde for dinner," answered Virginia.
+
+"But it's only ten o'clock," said Puss. "And, Jinny?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"There's a new young man in town, and they do say his appearance is very
+striking--not exactly handsome, you know, but strong-looking."
+
+"He's horrid!" said Virginia. "He's a Yankee."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded Puss and Emily in chorus.
+
+"And he's no gentleman," said Virginia.
+
+"But how do you know, Jinny?"
+
+"He's an upstart."
+
+"Oh. But he belongs to a very good Boston family, they say."
+
+"There are no good Boston families," replied Virginia, with conviction,
+as she separated her reins. "He has proved that. Who ever heard of a good
+Yankee family?"
+
+"What has he done to you, Virginia?" asked Puss, who had brains.
+
+Virginia glanced at the guest. But her grievance was too hot within her
+for suppression.
+
+Do you remember Mr. Benbow's Hester, girls? The one I always said I
+wanted. She was sold at auction yesterday. Pa and I were passing the
+Court House, with Clarence, when she was put up for sale. We crossed the
+street to see what was going on, and there was your strong-looking Yankee
+standing at the edge of the crowd. I am quite sure that he saw me as
+plainly as I see you, Puss Russell."
+
+"How could he help it?" said Puss, slyly.
+
+Virginia took no notice of the remark.
+
+"He heard me ask Pa to buy her. He heard Clarence say that he would bid
+her in for me. I know he did. And yet he goes in and outbids Clarence,
+and buys her himself. Do you think any gentleman would do that, Puss
+Russell?"
+
+"He bought her himself!" cried the astonished Miss Russell. "Why I
+thought that all Bostonians were Abolitionists."
+
+"Then he set her free," said Miss Carvel, contemptuously Judge Whipple
+went on her bond to-day."
+
+"Oh, I'm just crazy to see him now," said Miss Russell.
+
+"Ask him to your party, Virginia," she added mischievously.
+
+"Do you think I would have him in my house?" cried Virginia.
+
+Miss Russell was likewise courageous--"I don't see why not. You have
+Judge Whipple every Sunday dinner, and he's an Abolitionist."
+
+Virginia drew herself up.
+
+"Judge Whipple has never insulted me," she said, with dignity.
+
+Puss gave way to laughter. Whereupon, despite her protests and prayers
+for forgiveness, Virginia took to her mare again and galloped off. They
+saw her turn northward on the Bellefontaine Road.
+
+Presently the woodland hid from her sight the noble river shining far
+below, and Virginia pulled Vixen between the gateposts which marked the
+entrance to her aunt's place, Bellegarde. Half a mile through the cool
+forest, the black dirt of the driveway flying from Vixen's hoofs, and
+there was the Colfax house on the edge of the, gentle slope; and beyond
+it the orchard, and the blue grapes withering on the vines,--and beyond
+that fields and fields of yellow stubble. The silver smoke of a steamboat
+hung in wisps above the water. A young negro was busily washing the broad
+veranda, but he stopped and straightened at sight of the young
+horsewoman.
+
+"Sambo, where's your mistress?"
+
+"Clar t' goodness, Miss Jinny, she was heah leetle while ago."
+
+"Yo' git atter Miss Lilly, yo' good-fo'-nuthin' niggah," said Ned,
+warmly. "Ain't yo' be'n raised better'n to stan' theh wif yo'mouf open?"
+
+Sambo was taking the hint, when Miss Virginia called him back.
+
+"Where's Mr. Clarence?
+
+"Young Masr? I'll fotch him, Miss Jinny. He jes come home f'um seein'
+that thar trottin' hose he's gwine to race nex' week."
+
+Ned, who had tied Calhoun and was holding his mistress's bridle, sniffed.
+He had been Colonel Carvel's jockey in his younger days.
+
+"Shucks!" he said contemptuously. "I hoped to die befo' the day a
+gemman'd own er trottah, Jinny. On'y runnin' hosses is fit fo' gemmen."
+
+"Ned," said Virginia, "I shall be eighteen in two weeks and a young lady.
+On that day you must call me Miss Jinny."
+
+Ned's face showed both astonishment and inquiry.
+
+"Jinny, ain't I nussed you always? Ain't I come upstairs to quiet you
+when yo' mammy ain't had no power ovah yo'? Ain't I cooked fo' yo', and
+ain't I followed you everywheres since I quit ridin' yo' pa's bosses to
+vict'ry? Ain't I one of de fambly? An' yit yo' ax me to call yo' Miss
+Jinny?"
+
+"Then you've had privileges enough," Virginia answered. "One week from
+to-morrow you are to say 'Miss Jinny.'"
+
+"I'se tell you what, Jinny," he answered mischievously, with an emphasis
+on the word, "I'se call you Miss Jinny ef you'll call me Mistah Johnson.
+Mistah Johnson. You aint gwinter forget? Mistah Johnson."
+
+"I'll remember," she said. "Ned," she demanded suddenly, "would you like
+to be free?"
+
+The negro started.
+
+"Why you ax me dat, Jinny?"
+
+"Mr. Benbow's Hester is free," she said.
+
+"Who done freed her?"
+
+Miss Virginia flushed. "A detestable young Yankee, who has come out here
+to meddle with what doesn't concern him. I wanted Hester, Ned. And you
+should have married her, if you behaved yourself."
+
+Ned laughed uneasily.
+
+"I reckon I'se too ol' fo' Heste'." And added with privileged impudence,
+"There ain't no cause why I can't marry her now."
+
+Virginia suddenly leaped to the ground without his assistance.
+
+"That's enough, Ned," she said, and started toward the house.
+
+"Jinny! Miss Jinny!" The call was plaintive.
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Miss Jinny, I seed that than young gemman. Lan' sakes, he ain' look like
+er Yankee."
+
+"Ned," said Virginia, sternly, "do you want to go back to cooking?"
+
+He quailed. "Oh, no'm--Lan' sakes, no'm. I didn't mean nuthin'."
+
+She turned, frowned, and bit her lip. Around the corner of the veranda
+she ran into her cousin.  He, too, was booted and spurred. He reached
+out, boyishly, to catch her in his arms. But she drew back from his
+grasp.
+
+"Why, Jinny," he cried, "what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, Max." She often called him so, his middle name being Maxwell.
+"But you have no right to do that."
+
+"To do what?" said Clarence, making a face.
+
+"You know," answered Virginia, curtly. "Where's Aunt Lillian?"
+
+"Why haven't I the right?" he asked, ignoring the inquiry.
+
+"Because you have not, unless I choose. And I don't choose."
+
+"Are you angry with me still? It wasn't my fault. Uncle Comyn made me
+come away. You should have had the girl, Jinny, if it took my fortune."
+
+"You have been drinking this morning, Max," said Virginia.
+
+"Only a julep or so," he replied apologetically. "I rode over to the race
+track to see the new trotter. I've called him Halcyon, Jinny," he
+continued, with enthusiasm. "And he'll win the handicap sure."
+
+She sat down on the veranda steps, with her knees crossed and her chin
+resting on her hands. The air was heavy with the perfume of the grapes
+and the smell of late flowers from the sunken garden near by. A blue haze
+hung over the Illinois shore.
+
+"Max, you promised me you wouldn't drink so much."
+
+"And I haven't been, Jinny, 'pon my word," he replied. "But I met old
+Sparks at the Tavern, and he started to talk about the horses, and--and
+he insisted."
+
+"And you hadn't the strength of character," she said, scornfully, "to
+refuse."
+
+"Pshaw, Jinny, a gentleman must be a gentleman. I'm no Yankee."
+
+For a space Virginia answered nothing. Then she said, without changing
+her position:
+
+"If you were, you might be worth something."
+
+"Virginia!"
+
+She did not reply, but sat gazing toward the water. He began to pace the
+veranda, fiercely.
+
+"Look here, Jinny," he cried, pausing in front of her. "There are some
+things you can't say to me, even in jest."
+
+Virginia rose, flicked her riding-whip, and started down the steps.
+
+"Don't be a fool, Max," she said.
+
+He followed her, bewildered. She skirted the garden, passed the orchard,
+and finally reached a summer house perched on a knoll at the edge of the
+wood. Then she seated herself on a bench, silently. He took a place on
+the opposite side, with his feet stretched out, dejectedly.
+
+"I'm tired trying to please you," he said. "I have been a fool. You don't
+care that for me. It was all right when I was younger, when there was no
+one else to take you riding, and jump off the barn for your amusement,
+Miss. Now you have Tom Catherwood and Jack Brinsmade and the Russell boys
+running after you, it's different. I reckon I'll go to Kansas. There are
+Yankees to shoot in Kansas."
+
+He did not see her smile as he sat staring at his feet.
+
+"Max," said she, all at once, "why don't you settle down to something?
+Why don't you work?"
+
+Young Mr. Colfax's arm swept around in a circle.
+
+There are twelve hundred acres to look after here, and a few niggers.
+That's enough for a gentleman."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed his cousin, "this isn't a cotton plantation. Aunt
+Lillian doesn't farm for money. If she did, you would have to check your
+extravagances mighty quick, sir."
+
+"I look after Pompey's reports, I do as much work as my ancestors,"
+answered Clarence, hotly.
+
+"Ah, that is the trouble," said Virginia.
+
+"What do you mean?" her cousin demanded.
+
+"We have been gentlemen too long," said Virginia.
+
+The boy straightened up and rose. The pride and wilfulness of generations
+was indeed in his handsome face. And something else went with it. Around
+the mouth a grave tinge of indulgence.
+
+"What has your life been?" she went on, speaking rapidly. "A mixture of
+gamecocks and ponies and race horses and billiards, and idleness at the
+Virginia Springs, and fighting with other boys. What do you know? You
+wouldn't go to college. You wouldn't study law. You can't write a decent
+letter. You don't know anything about the history of your country. What
+can you do--?"
+
+"I can ride and fight," he said. "I can go to New Orleans to-morrow to
+join Walker's Nicaragua expedition. We've got to beat the Yankees,
+--they'll have Kansas away from us before we know it."
+
+Virginia's eye flashed appreciation.
+
+"Do you remember, Jinny," he cried, "one day long ago when those Dutch
+ruffians were teasing you and Anne on the road, and Bert Russell and Jack
+and I came along? We whipped 'em, Jinny. And my eye was closed. And you
+were bathing it here, and one of my buttons was gone. And you counted the
+rest."
+
+"Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,"
+she recited, laughing. She crossed over and sat beside him, and her tone
+changed. "Max, can't you understand? It isn't that. Max, if you would
+only work at something. That is why the Yankees beat us. If you would
+learn to weld iron, or to build bridges, or railroads. Or if you would
+learn business, and go to work in Pa's store."
+
+"You do not care for me as I am?"
+
+"I knew that you did not understand," she answered passionately. "It is
+because I care for you that I wish to make you great. You care too much
+for a good time, for horses, Max. You love the South, but you think too
+little how she is to be saved. If war is to come, we shall want men like
+that Captain Robert Lee who was here. A man who can turn the forces of
+the earth to his own purposes."
+
+For a moment Clarence was moodily silent.
+
+"I have always intended to go into politics, after Pa's example," he said
+at length.
+
+"Then--" began Virginia, and paused.
+
+"Then--?" he said.
+
+"Then--you must study law."
+
+He gave her the one keen look. And she met it, with her lips tightly
+pressed together. Then he smiled.
+
+"Virginia, you will never forgive that Yankee, Brice."
+
+"I shall never forgive any Yankee," she retorted quickly. "But we are not
+talking about him. I am thinking of the South, and of you."
+
+He stooped toward her face, but she avoided him and went back to the
+bench.
+
+"Why not?" he said.
+
+"You must prove first that you are a man," she said.
+
+For years he remembered the scene. The vineyard, the yellow stubble; and
+the river rushing on and on with tranquil power, and the slow panting of
+the steamboat. A doe ran out of the forest, and paused, her head raised,
+not twenty feet away.
+
+"And then you will marry me, Jinny?" he asked finally.
+
+"Before you may hope to control another, we shall see whether you can
+control yourself, sir."
+
+"But it has all been arranged," he exclaimed, "since we played here
+together years ago!"
+
+"No one shall arrange that for me," replied Virginia promptly. "And I
+should think that you would wish to have some of the credit for
+yourself."
+
+"Jinny!"
+
+Again she avoided him by leaping the low railing. The doe fled into the
+forest, whistling fearfully. Virginia waved her hand to him and started
+toward the house. At the corner of the porch she ran into her aunt Mrs.
+Colfax was a beautiful woman. Beautiful when Addison Colfax married her
+in Kentucky at nineteen, beautiful still at three and forty. This, I am
+aware, is a bald statement. "Prove it," you say. "We do not believe it.
+It was told you by some old beau who lives upon the memory of the past."
+
+Ladies, a score of different daguerrotypes of Lillian Colfax are in
+existence. And whatever may be said of portraits, daguerrotypes do not
+flatter. All the town admitted that she was beautiful. All the town knew
+that she was the daughter of old Judge Colfax's overseer at Halcyondale.
+If she had not been beautiful, Addison Colfax would not have run away
+with her. That is certain. He left her a rich widow at five and twenty,
+mistress of the country place he had bought on the Bellefontaine Road,
+near St. Louis. And when Mrs. Colfax was not dancing off to the Virginia
+watering-places, Bellegarde was a gay house.
+
+"Jinny," exclaimed her aunt, "how you scared me! What on earth is the
+matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said Virginia
+
+"She refused to kiss me," put in Clarence, half in play, half in
+resentment.
+
+Mrs. Colfax laughed musically. She put one of her white hands on each of
+her niece's cheeks, kissed her, and then gazed into her face until
+Virginia reddened.
+
+"Law, Jinny, you're quite pretty," said her aunt
+
+"I hadn't realized it--but you must take care of your complexion. You're
+horribly sunburned, and you let your hair blow all over your face. It's
+barbarous not to wear a mask when you ride. Your Pa doesn't look after
+you properly. I would ask you to stay to the dance to-night if your skin
+were only white, instead of red. You're old enough to know better,
+Virginia. Mr. Vance was to have driven out for dinner. Have you seen him,
+Clarence?"
+
+"No, mother."
+
+"He is so amusing," Mrs. Colfax continued, "and he generally brings
+candy. I shall die of the blues before supper." She sat down with a grand
+air at the head of the table, while Alfred took the lid from the silver
+soup-tureen in front of her. "Jinny, can't you say something bright? Do I
+have to listen to Clarence's horse talk for another hour? Tell me some
+gossip. Will you have some gumbo soup?"
+
+"Why do you listen to Clarence's horse talk?" said Virginia. "Why don't
+you make him go to work!"
+
+"Mercy!" said Mrs. Colfax, laughing, "what could he do?"
+
+"That's just it," said Virginia. "He hasn't a serious interest in life."
+
+Clarence looked sullen. And his mother, as usual, took his side.
+
+"What put that into your head, Jinny," she said. "He has the place here
+to look after, a very gentlemanly occupation. That's what they do in
+Virginia."
+
+"Yes," said Virginia, scornfully, "we're all gentlemen in the South. What
+do we know about business and developing the resources of the country?
+Not THAT."
+
+"You make my head ache, my dear," was her aunt's reply. "Where did you
+get all this?"
+
+"You ask me because I am a girl," said Virginia. "You believe that women
+were made to look at, and to play with,--not to think. But if we are
+going to get ahead of the Yankees, we shall have to think. It was all
+very well to be a gentleman in the days of my great-grandfather. But now
+we have railroads and steamboats. And who builds them? The Yankees. We of
+the South think of our ancestors, and drift deeper and deeper into debt.
+We know how to fight, and we know how to command. But we have been ruined
+by--" here she glanced at the retreating form of Alfred, and lowered her
+voice, "by niggers."
+
+Mrs. Colfax's gaze rested languidly on her niece's faces which glowed
+with indignation.
+
+"You get this terrible habit of argument from Comyn," she said. "He ought
+to send you to boarding-school. How mean of Mr. Vance not to come! You've
+been talking with that old reprobate Whipple. Why does Comyn put up with
+him?"
+
+"He isn't an old reprobate," said Virginia, warmly.
+
+"You really ought to go to school," said her aunt. "Don't be eccentric.
+It isn't fashionable. I suppose you wish Clarence to go into a factory."
+
+"If I were a man," said Virginia, "and going into a factory would teach
+me how to make a locomotive or a cotton press, or to build a bridge, I
+should go into a factory. We shall never beat the Yankees until we meet
+them on their own ground."
+
+"There is Mr. Vance now," said Mrs. Colfax, and added fervently, "Thank
+the Lord!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A QUIET SUNDAY IN LOCUST STREET
+
+IF the truth were known where Virginia got the opinions which she
+expressed so freely to her aunt and cousin, it was from Colonel Carvel
+himself. The Colonel would rather have denounced the Dred Scott decision
+than admit to Judge Whipple that one of the greatest weaknesses of the
+South lay in her lack of mechanical and manufacturing ability. But he had
+confessed as much in private to Captain Elijah Brent. The Colonel would
+often sit for an hour or more, after supper, with his feet tucked up on
+the mantel and his hat on the back of his head, buried in thought. Then
+he would saunter slowly down to the Planters' House bar, which served the
+purposes of a club in those days, in search of an argument with other
+prominent citizens. The Colonel had his own particular chair in his own
+particular corner, which was always vacated when he came in at the door.
+And then he always had three fingers of the best Bourbon whiskey, no more
+and no less, every evening.
+
+He never met his bosom friend and pet antagonist at the Planters' House
+bar. Judge Whipple, indeed, took his meals upstairs, but he never
+descended,--it was generally supposed because of the strong slavery
+atmosphere there. However, the Judge went periodically to his friend's
+for a quiet Sunday dinner (so called in derision by St. Louisans), on
+which occasions Virginia sat at the end of the table and endeavored to
+pour water on the flames when they flared up too fiercely.
+
+The Sunday following her ride to Bellegarde was the Judge's Sunday,
+Certain tastes which she had inherited had hitherto provided her with
+pleasurable sensations while these battles were in progress. More than
+once had she scored a fair hit on the Judge for her father,--to the
+mutual delight of both gentlemen. But to-day she dreaded being present at
+the argument. Just why she dreaded it is a matter of feminine psychology
+best left to the reader for solution.
+
+The argument began, as usual, with the tearing apart limb by limb of the
+unfortunate Franklin Pierce, by Judge Whipple.
+
+"What a miserable exhibition in the eyes of the world," said the Judge.
+"Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire" (he pronounced this name with infinite
+scorn) "managed by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi!"
+
+"And he was well managed, sir," said the Colonel.
+
+"What a pliant tool of your Southern slaveholders! I hear that you are to
+give him a plantation as a reward."
+
+"No such thing, sir."
+
+"He deserves it," continued the Judge, with conviction. "See the
+magnificent forts he permitted Davis to build up in the South, the
+arsenals he let him stock. The country does not realize this. But the day
+will, come when they will execrate Pierce before Benedict Arnold, sir.
+And look at the infamous Kansas-Nebraska act! That is the greatest crime,
+and Douglas and Pierce the greatest criminals, of the century."
+
+"Do have some more of that fried chicken, Judge," said Virginia.
+
+Mr. Whipple helped himself fiercely, and the Colonel smiled.
+
+"You should be satisfied now," said he. "Another Northern man is in the
+White House."
+
+"Buchanan!" roared the Judge, with his mouth full.
+
+"Another traitor, sir. Another traitor worse than the first. He swallows
+the Dred Scott decision, and smirks. What a blot on the history of this
+Republic! O Lord!" cried Mr. Whipple, "what are we coming to? A Northern
+man, he could gag and bind Kansas and force her into slavery against the
+will of her citizens. He packs his Cabinet to support the ruffians you
+send over the borders. The very governors he ships out there, his
+henchmen, have their stomachs turned. Look at Walker, whom they are
+plotting against in Washington. He can't stand the smell of this
+Lecompton Constitution Buchanan is trying to jam down their throats.
+Jefferson Davis would have troops there, to be sure that it goes through,
+if he had his way. Can't you see how one sin leads to another, Carvel?
+How slavery is rapidly demoralizing a free people?"
+
+"It is because you won't let it alone where it belongs, sir," retorted
+the Colonel. It was seldom that he showed any heat in his replies. He
+talked slowly, and he had a way of stretching forth his hand to prevent
+the more eager Judge from interrupting him.
+
+"The welfare of the whole South, as matters now stand, sir, depends upon
+slavery. Our plantations could not exist a day without slave labor. If
+you abolished that institution, Judge Whipple, you would ruin millions of
+your fellow-countrymen,--you would reduce sovereign states to a situation
+of disgraceful dependence. And all, sir," now he raised his voice lest
+the Judge break in, "all, sir, for the sake of a low breed that ain't fit
+for freedom. You and I, who have the Magna Charta and the Declaration of
+Independence behind us, who are descended from a race that has done
+nothing but rule for ten centuries and more, may well establish a
+Republic where the basis of stability is the self-control of the
+individual--as long as men such as you and I form its citizens. Look at
+the South Americans. How do Republics go there? And the minute you and I
+let in niggers, who haven't any more self-control than dogs, on an equal
+basis, with as much of a vote as you have,--niggers, sir, that have lived
+like wild beasts in the depths of the jungle since the days of Ham,
+--what's going to become of our Republic?"
+
+"Education," cried the Judge.
+
+But the word was snatched out of his mouth.
+
+"Education isn't a matter of one generation. No, sir, nor two, nor three,
+nor four. But of centuries."
+
+"Sir," said the Judge, "I can point out negroes of intelligence and
+learning."
+
+"And I reckon you could teach some monkeys to talk English, and recite
+the catechism, and sing emotional hymns, if you brought over a couple of
+million from Africa," answered the Colonel, dryly, as he rose to put on
+his hat and light a cigar.
+
+It was his custom to offer a cigar to the Judge, who invariably refused,
+and rubbed his nose with scornful violence.
+
+Virginia, on the verge of leaving, stayed on, fascinated by the turn the
+argument had taken.
+
+"Your prejudice is hide-bound, sir," said Mr. Whipple.
+
+"No, Whipple," said the Colonel, "when God washed off this wicked earth,
+and started new, He saw fit to put the sons of Ham in subjection. They're
+slaves of each other in Africa, and I reckon they're treated no better
+than they are here. Abuses can't be helped in any system, sir, though we
+are bettering them. Were the poor in London in the days of the Edwards as
+well off as our niggers are to-day?"
+
+The Judge snorted.
+
+"A divine institution!" he shouted. "A black curse! Because the world has
+been a wicked place of oppression since Noah's day, is that any reason
+why it should so continue until the day of Judgment?"
+
+The Colonel smiled, which was a sign that he was pleased with his
+argument.
+
+"Now, see here, Whipple," said he. "If we had any guarantee that you
+would let us alone where we are, to manage our slaves and to cultivate
+our plantations, there wouldn't be any trouble. But the country keeps on
+growing and growing, and you're not content with half. You want
+everything,--all the new states must abolish slavery. And after a while
+you will overwhelm us, and ruin us, and make us paupers. Do you wonder
+that we contend for our rights, tooth and nail? They are our rights."
+
+"If it had not been for Virginia and Maryland and the South, this nation
+would not be in existence."
+
+The Colonel laughed.
+
+"First rate, Jinny," he cried. "That's so."
+
+But the Judge was in a revery. He probably had not heard her.
+
+"The nation is going to the dogs," he said, mumbling rather to himself
+than to the others. "We shall never prosper until the curse is shaken
+off, or wiped out in blood. It clogs our progress. Our merchant marine,
+of which we were so proud, has been annihilated by these continued
+disturbances. But, sir," he cried, hammering his fist upon the table
+until the glasses rang, "the party that is to save us was born at
+Pittsburgh last year on Washington's birthday. The Republican Party,
+sir."
+
+"Shucks!" exclaimed Mr. Carvel, with amusement, "The Black Republican
+Party, made up of old fools and young Anarchists, of Dutchmen and
+nigger-worshippers. Why, Whipple, that party's a joke. Where's your
+leader?"
+
+"In Illinois," was the quick response.
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Abraham Lincoln, sir," thundered Mr. Whipple. "And to my way of thinking
+he has uttered a more significant phrase on the situation than any of
+your Washington statesmen. 'This government,' said he to a friend of
+mine, 'cannot exist half slave and half free.'"
+
+So impressively did Mr. Whipple pronounce these words that Mr. Carvel
+stirred uneasily, and in spite of himself, as though he were listening to
+an oracle. He recovered instantly.
+
+"He's a demagogue, seeking for striking phrases, sir. You're too
+intelligent a man to be taken in by such as he."
+
+"I tell you he is not, sir."
+
+"I know him, sir," cried the Colonel, taking down his feet. "He's an
+obscure lawyer. Poor white trash! Torn down poor! My friend Mr.
+Richardson of Springfield tells me he is low down. He was born in a log
+cabin, and spends most of his time in a drug-store telling stories that
+you would not listen to, Judge Whipple."
+
+"I would listen to anything he said," replied the Judge. "Poor white
+trash, sir! The greatest men rise from the people. A demagogue!" Mr.
+Whipple fairly shook with rage. "The nation doesn't know him yet. But
+mark my words, the day will come when it will. He was ballotted for
+Vice-President in the Philadelphia convention last year. Nobody paid any
+attention to that. If the convention had heard him speak at Bloomington,
+he would have been nominated instead of Fremont. If the nation could have
+heard him, he would be President to-day instead of that miserable
+Buchanan. I happened to be at Bloomington. And while the idiots on the
+platform were drivelling, the people kept calling for Lincoln. I had
+never heard of him then. I've never forgot him since. He came ambling out
+of the back of the hall, a lanky, gawky looking man, ridiculously ugly,
+sir. But the moment he opened his mouth he had us spellbound. The
+language which your low-down lawyer used was that of a God-sent prophet,
+sir. He had those Illinois bumpkins all worked up,--the women crying,
+and some of the men, too. And mad! Good Lord, they were mad--'We will say
+to the Southern disunionists,' he cried,--'we will say to the Southern
+disunionists, we won't go out of the Union, and you shan't.'"
+
+There was a silence when the Judge finished. But presently Mr. Carvel
+took a match. And he stood over the Judge in his favorite attitude,
+--with his feet apart,--as he lighted another cigar.
+
+"I reckon we're going to have war, Silas," said he, slowly; "but don't
+you think that your Mr. Lincoln scares me into that belief. I don't count
+his bluster worth a cent. No sirree! It's this youngster who comes out
+here from Boston and buys a nigger with all the money he's got in the
+world. And if he's an impetuous young fool; I'm no judge of men."
+
+"Appleton Brice wasn't precisely impetuous," remarked Mr. Whipple. And he
+smiled a little bitterly, as though the word had stirred a memory.
+
+"I like that young fellow," Mr. Carvel continued. "It seems to be a kind
+of fatality with me to get along with Yankees. I reckon there's a screw
+loose somewhere, but Brice acted the man all the way through. He goa a
+fall out of you, Silas, in your room, after the show. Where are you
+going, Jinny?"
+
+Virginia had risen, and she was standing very erects with a flush on her
+face, waiting for her father to finish.
+
+"To see Anne Brinsmade," she said. "Good-by, Uncle Silas."
+
+She had called him so from childhood. Hers was the one voice that seemed
+to soften him--it never failed. He turned to her now with a movement that
+was almost gentle. "Virginia, I should like you to know my young Yankee,"
+said he.
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Silas," said the girl, with dignity, "but I scarcely
+think that he would care to know me. He feels so strongly."
+
+"He feels no stronger than I do," replied the Judge.
+
+"You have gotten used to me in eighteen years, and besides," she flashed,
+"you never spent all the money you had in the world for a principle."
+
+Mr. Whipple smiled as she went out of the door.
+
+"I have spent pretty near all," he said. But more to himself than to the
+Colonel.
+
+That evening, some young people came in to tea, two of the four big
+Catherwood boys, Anne Brinsmade and her brother Jack, Puss Russell and
+Bert, and Eugenie Renault. But Virginia lost her temper. In an evil
+moment Puss Russell started the subject of the young Yankee who had
+deprived her of Hester. Puss was ably seconded by Jack Brinsmade, whose
+reputation as a tormentor extended far back into his boyhood. In vain;
+did Anne, the peacemaker, try to quench him, while the big Catherwoods
+and Bert Russell laughed incessantly. No wonder that Virginia was angry.
+She would not speak to Puss as that young lady bade her good night. And
+the Colonel, coming home from an evening with Mr, Brinsmade, found his
+daughter in an armchair, staring into the sitting-room fire. There was no
+other light in the room Her chin was in her hand, and her lips were
+pursed.
+
+"Heigho!" said the Colonel, "what's the trouble now?"
+
+"Nothing," said Virginia.
+
+"Come," he insisted, "what have they been doing to my girl?"
+
+"Pa!"
+
+"Yes, honey."
+
+"I don't want to go to balls all my life. I want to go to
+boarding-school, and learn something. Emily is going to Monticello after
+Christmas. Pa, will you let me?"
+
+Mr. Carvel winced. He put an arm around her. He, thought of his lonely
+widowerhood, of her whose place Virginia had taken.
+
+"And what shall I do?" he said, trying to smile.
+
+"It will only be for a little while. And Monticello isn't very far, Pa."
+
+"Well, well, there is plenty of time to think it over between now and
+January," he said. "And now I have a little favor to ask of you, honey."
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+The Colonel took the other armchair, stretched his feet toward the blaze,
+and stroked his goatee. He glanced covertly at his daughter's profile.
+Twice he cleared hip throat.
+
+"Jinny?"
+
+"Yes, Pa" (without turning her head).
+
+"Jinny, I was going to speak of this young. Brice. He's a stranger here,
+and he comes of a good family, and--and I like him."
+
+"And you wish me to invite him to my party," finished Virginia.
+
+The Colonel started. "I reckon you guessed it," he said.
+
+Virginia remained immovable. She did not answer at once. Then she said:
+
+"Do you think, in bidding against me, that he behaved, like a gentleman?"
+
+The Colonel blundered.
+
+"Lord, Virginia," he said, "I thought you told the judge this afternoon
+teat it was done out of principle."
+
+Virginia ignored this. But she bit her lip
+
+"He is like all Yankees, without one bit of consideration for a woman. He
+knew I wanted Hester."
+
+"What makes you imagine that he thought of you at all, my dear?" asked
+her father, mildly, "He does not know you."
+
+This time the Colonel scored certainly. The firelight saved Virginia.
+
+"He overheard our conversation," she answered.
+
+"I reckon that he wasn't worrying much about us. And besides, he was
+trying to save Hester from Jennings."
+
+"I thought that you said that it was to be my party, Pa," said Virginia,
+irrelevantly.
+
+The Colonel looked thoughtful, then he began to laugh.
+
+"Haven't we enough Black Republican friends?" she asked.
+
+"So you won't have him?" said the Colonel.
+
+"I didn't say that I wouldn't have him," she answered.
+
+The Colonel rose, and brushed the ashes from his goat.
+
+"By Gum!" he said. "Women beat me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE
+
+When Stephen attempted to thank Judge Whipple for going on Hester's bond,
+he merely said, "Tut, tut."
+
+The Judge rose at six, so his man Shadrach told Stephen. He had his
+breakfast at the Planters' House at seven, read the Missouri Democrat,
+and returned by eight. Sometimes he would say good morning to Stephen and
+Richter, and sometimes he would not. Mr. Whipple was out a great part of
+the day, and he had many visitors. He was a very busy man. Like a great
+specialist (which he was), he would see only one person at a time. And
+Stephen soon discovered that his employer did not discriminate between
+age or sex, or importance, or condition of servitude. In short, Stephen's
+opinion of Judge Whipple altered very materially before the end of that
+first week. He saw poor women and disconsolate men go into the private
+room ahead of rich citizens, who seemed content to wait their turn on the
+hard wooden chairs against the wall of the main office. There was one
+incident in particular, when a well-dressed gentleman of middle age paced
+impatiently for two mortal hours after Shadrach had taken his card into
+the sanctum. When at last he had been admitted, Mr. Richter whispered to
+Stephen his name. It was that of a big railroad man from the East. The
+transom let out the true state of affairs.
+
+"See here, Callender," the Judge was heard to say, "you fellows don't
+like me, and you wouldn't come here unless you had to. But when your road
+gets in a tight place, you turn up and expect to walk in ahead of my
+friends. No, sir, if you want to see me, you've got to wait."
+
+Mr. Callender made some inaudible reply, "Money!" roared the Judge, "take
+your money to Stetson, and see if you win your case."
+
+Mr. Richter smiled at Stephen, as if in sheer happiness at this
+vindication of an employer who had never seemed to him to need a defence.
+
+Stephen was greatly drawn toward this young German with the great scar on
+his pleasant face. And he was itching to know about that scar. Every day,
+after coming in from dinner, Richter lighted a great brown meerschaum,
+and read the St. Louis 'Anzeiger' and the 'Westliche Post'. Often he sang
+quietly to himself:
+
+          "Deutschlands Sohne
+          Laut ertone
+          Euer Vaterlandgesang.
+          Vaterland! Du Land des Ruhmes,
+          Weih' zu deines Heiligthumes
+          Hutern, uns and unser Schwert."
+
+There were other songs, too. And some wonderful quality in the German's
+voice gave you a thrill when you heard them, albeit you could not
+understand the words. Richter never guessed how Stephen, with his eyes on
+his book, used to drink in those airs. And presently he found out that
+they were inspired.
+
+The day that the railroad man called, and after he and the Judge had gone
+out together, the ice was broken.
+
+"You Americans from the North are a queer people, Mr. Brice," remarked
+Mr. Richter, as he put on his coat. "You do not show your feelings. You
+are ashamed. The Judge, at first I could not comprehend him--he would
+scold and scold. But one day I see that his heart is warm, and since then
+I love him. Have you ever eaten a German dinner, Mr. Brice? No? Then you
+must come with me, now."
+
+It was raining, the streets ankle-deep in mud, and the beer-garden by the
+side of the restaurant to which they went was dreary and bedraggled. But
+inside the place was warm and cheerful. Inside, to all intents and
+purposes, it was Germany. A most genial host crossed the room to give Mr.
+Richter a welcome that any man might have envied. He was introduced to
+Stephen.
+
+"We were all 'Streber' together, in Germany," said Richter.
+
+"You were all what?" asked Stephen, interested.
+
+"Strivers, you might call it in English. In the Vaterland those who seek
+for higher and better things--for liberty, and to be rid of oppression
+--are so called. That is why we fought in '48 and lost. And that is why we
+came here, to the Republic. Ach! I fear I will never be the great lawyer
+--but the striver, yes, always. We must fight once more to be rid of the
+black monster that sucks the blood of freedom--vampire. Is it not so in
+English?"
+
+Stephen was astonished at this outburst.
+
+"You think it will come to war?"
+
+"I fear,--yes, I fear," said the German, shaking his head. "We fear. We
+are already preparing."
+
+"Preparing? You would fight, Richter? You, a foreigner?"
+
+"A foreigner!" cried Richter, with a flash of anger in his blue eyes that
+died as suddenly as it came,--died into reproach. "Call me not a
+foreigner--we Germans will show whether or not we are foreigners when the
+time is ripe. This great country belongs to all the oppressed. Your
+ancestors founded it, and fought for it, that the descendants of mine
+might find a haven from tyranny. My friend, one-half of this city is
+German, and it is they who will save it if danger arises. You must come
+with me one night to South St. Louis, that you may know us. Then you will
+perhaps understand, Stephen. You will not think of us as foreign swill,
+but as patriots who love our new Vaterland even as you love it. You must
+come to our Turner Halls, where we are drilling against the time when the
+Union shall have need of us."
+
+"You are drilling now?" exclaimed Stephen, in still greater astonishment.
+The German's eloquence had made him tingle, even as had the songs.
+
+"Prosit deine Blume!" answered Richter, smiling and holding up his glass
+of beer. "You will come to a 'commerce', and see.
+
+"This is not our blessed Lichtenhainer, that we drink at Jena. One may
+have a pint of Lichtenhainer for less than a groschen at Jena. Aber," he
+added as he rose, with a laugh that showed his strong teeth, "we
+Americans are rich."
+
+As Stephen's admiration for his employer grew, his fear of him waxed
+greater likewise. The Judge's methods of teaching law were certainly not
+Harvard's methods. For a fortnight he paid as little attention to the
+young man as he did to the messengers who came with notes and cooled
+their heels in the outer office until it became the Judge's pleasure to
+answer them. This was a trifle discouraging to Stephen. But he stuck to
+his Chitty and his Greenleaf and his Kent. It was Richter who advised him
+to buy Whittlesey's "Missouri Form Book," and warned him of Mr. Whipple's
+hatred for the new code. Well that he did! There came a fearful hour of
+judgment. With the swiftness of a hawk Mr. Whipple descended out of a
+clear sky, and instantly the law terms began to rattle in Stephen's head
+like dried peas in a can. It was the Old Style of Pleading this time,
+without a knowledge of which the Judge declared with vehemence that a
+lawyer was not fit to put pen to legal cap.
+
+"Now, sir, the pleadings?" he cried.
+
+"First," said Stephen, "was the Declaration. The answer to that was the
+Plea. The answer to that was the Replication. Then came the Rejoinder,
+then the Surrejoinder, then the Rebutter, then the Surrebutter. But they
+rarely got that far," he added unwisely.
+
+"A good principle in Law, sir," said the Judge, "is not to volunteer
+information."
+
+Stephen was somewhat cast down when he reached home that Saturday
+evening. He had come out of his examination with feathers drooping. He
+had been given no more briefs to copy, nor had Mr. Whipple vouchsafed
+even to send him on an errand. He had not learned how common a thing it
+is with young lawyers to feel that they are of no use in the world.
+Besides, the rain continued. This was the fifth day.
+
+His mother, knitting before the fire in her own room, greeted him with
+her usual quiet smile of welcome. He tried to give her a humorous account
+of his catechism of the morning, but failed.
+
+"I am quite sure that he doesn't like me," said Stephen.
+
+His mother continued to smile.
+
+"If he did, he would not show it," she answered.
+
+"I can feel it," said Stephen, dejectedly.
+
+"The Judge was here this afternoon," said his mother.
+
+"What?" cried Stephen. "Again this week? They say that he never calls in
+the daytime, and rarely in the evening. What did he say?"
+
+"He said that some of this Boston nonsense must be gotten out of you,"
+answered Mrs. Brice, laughing. "He said that you were too stiff. That you
+needed to rub against the plain men who were building up the West. Who
+were making a vast world-power of the original little confederation of
+thirteen states. And Stephen," she added more earnestly, "I am not sure
+but what he is right."
+
+Then Stephen laughed. And for a long time he sat staring into the fire.
+
+"What else did he say?" he asked, after a while.
+
+"He told me about a little house which we might rent very cheaply. Too
+cheaply, it seems. The house is on this street, next door to Mr.
+Brinsmade, to whom it belongs. And Mr. Whipple brought the key, that we
+might inspect it to-morrow."
+
+"But a servant," objected Stephen, "I suppose that we must have a
+servant."
+
+His mother's voice fell.
+
+"That poor girl whom you freed is here to see me every day. Old Nancy
+does washing. But Hester has no work and she is a burden to Judge
+Whipple. Oh, no," she continued, in response to Stephen's glance, "the
+Judge did not mention that, but I think he had it in mind that Nester
+might come. And I am sure that she would."
+
+Sunday dawned brightly. After church Mrs. Brice and Stephen walked down
+Olive Street, and stood looking at a tiny house wedged in between, two
+large ones with scrolled fronts. Sad memories of Beacon Street filled
+them both as they gazed, but they said nothing of this to each other. As
+Stephen put his hand on the latch of the little iron gate, a gentleman
+came out of the larger house next door. He was past the middle age,
+somewhat scrupulously dressed in the old fashion, in swallowtail coat and
+black stock. Benevolence was in the generous mouth, in the large nose
+that looked like Washington's, and benevolence fairly sparkled in the
+blue eyes. He smiled at them as though he had known them always, and the
+world seemed brighter that very instant. They smiled in return, whereupon
+the gentleman lifted his hat. And the kindliness and the courtliness of
+that bow made them very happy. "Did you wish to look at the house,
+madam?" he asked "Yes, sir," said Mrs. Brice.
+
+"Allow me to open it for you," he said, graciously taking the key from
+her. "I fear that you will find it inconvenient and incommodious, ma'am.
+I should be fortunate, indeed, to get a good tenant."
+
+He fitted the key in the door, while Stephen and his mother smiled at
+each other at the thought of the rent. The gentleman opened the door, and
+stood aside to let them enter, very much as if he were showing them a
+palace for which he was the humble agent.
+
+They went into the little parlor, which was nicely furnished in mahogany
+and horsehair. And it had back of it a bit of a dining room, with a
+little porch overlooking the back yard. Mrs. Brice thought of the dark
+and stately high-ceiled dining-room she had known throughout her married
+days: of the board from which a royal governor of Massachusetts Colony
+had eaten, and some governors of the Commonwealth since. Thank God, she
+had not to sell that, nor the Brice silver which had stood on the high
+sideboard with the wolves and the shield upon it. The widow's eyes filled
+with tears. She had not hoped again to have a home for these things, nor
+the father's armchair, nor the few family treasures that were to come
+over the mountains.
+
+The gentleman, with infinite tact, said little, but led the way through
+the rooms. There were not many of them. At the door of the kitchen he
+stopped, and laid his hand kindly on Stephen's shoulder:-- "Here we may
+not enter. This is your department, ma'am," said he.
+
+Finally, as they stood without waiting for the gentleman, who insisted
+upon locking the door, they observed a girl in a ragged shawl hurrying up
+the street. As she approached them, her eyes were fixed upon the large
+house next door. But suddenly, as the gentleman turned, she caught sight
+of him, and from her lips escaped a cry of relief. She flung open the
+gate, and stood before him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Brinsmade," she cried, "mother is dying. You have done so much
+for us, sir,--couldn't you come to her for a little while? She thought if
+she might see you once more, she would die happy." The voice was choked
+by a sob.
+
+Mr. Brinsmade took the girl's hand in his own, and turned to the lady
+with as little haste, with as much politeness, as he had shown before.
+
+"You will excuse me, ma'am," he said, with his hat in his hand.
+
+The widow had no words to answer him. But she and her son watched him as
+he walked rapidly down the street, his arm in the girl's, until they were
+out of sight. And then they walked home silently.
+
+Might not the price of this little house be likewise a piece of the
+Brinsmade charity?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE INVITATION
+
+Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, in his Sunday-best broadcloth was a marvel of
+propriety. It seemed to Stephen that his face wore a graver expression on
+Sunday when he met him standing on Miss Crane's doorstep, picking the
+lint from his coat. Stephen's intention was not to speak. But he
+remembered what the Judge had said to his mother, and nodded. Why,
+indeed, should he put on airs with this man who had come to St. Louis
+unknown and unrecommended and poor, who by sheer industry had made
+himself of importance in the large business of Carvel &, Company? As for
+Stephen Brice, he was not yet earning his salt, but existing by the
+charity of Judge Silas Whipple.
+
+"Howdy, Mr. Brice," said Mr. Hopper, his glance caught by the indefinable
+in Stephen's costume. This would have puzzled Mr. Hopper's tailor more.
+
+"Very well, thanks."
+
+"A fine day after the rain."
+
+Stephen nodded, and Mr. Hopper entered the hours after him.
+
+"Be you asked to Virginia Carvel's party?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"I do not know Miss Carvel," said Stephen, wondering how well the other
+did. And if the truth be told, he was a little annoyed at Mr. Hopper's
+free use of her name.
+
+"That shouldn't make no difference," said Eliphalet with just a shade of
+bitterness in his tone. "They keep open house, like all Southerners," Mr.
+Hopper hesitated,--"for such as come well recommended. I 'most forgot,"
+said he. "I callate you're not any too well recommended. I 'most forgot
+that little transaction down to the Court House. They do say that she
+wanted that gal almighty bad,--she was most awful cut up not to get her.
+Served her right, though. I'm glad you did. Show her she can't have
+everything her own way. And say," he added, with laughter, "how you did
+fix that there stuckup Colfax boy! He'll never forgive you no more than
+she. But," said Mr. Hopper, meditatively, "it was a durned-fool trick."
+
+I think Stephen's critics will admit that he had a good right to be
+angry, and that they will admire him just a little bit because he kept
+his temper. But Mr. Hopper evidently thought he had gone too far.
+
+"She ain't got no use for me, neither," he said.
+
+"She shows poor judgment," answered Stephen.
+
+"She's not long sighted, that's sure," replied Eliphalet, with emphasis.
+
+At dinner Stephen was tried still further. And it was then he made the
+determination to write for the newspapers in order to pay the rent on Mr.
+Brinsmade's house. Miss Carvel's coming-out party was the chief topic.
+
+"They do say the Colonel is to spend a sight of money on that ball," said
+Mrs. Abner Reed. "I guess it won't bankrupt him." And she looked hard at
+Mr. Hopper.
+
+"I callate he ain't pushed for money," that gentleman vouchsafed.
+
+"He's a good man, and done well by you, Mr. Hopper."
+
+"So--so," answered Eliphalet. "But I will say that I done something for
+the Colonel. I've saved him a hundred times my pay since I showed old
+Hood the leaks. And I got a thousand dollar order from Wright & Company
+this week for him."
+
+"I dare say you'd keep a tight hand enough on expenses," said Miss Crane,
+half in sarcasm, half in approval.
+
+"If Colonel Carvel was doin' business in New England," said Eliphalet,
+"he'd been bankrupt long ago."
+
+"That young Clarence Colfax," Mrs. Abner Reed broke in, "he'll get a
+right smart mint o' money when he marries Virginia. They do say her
+mother left her independent. How now, Mr. Hopper?"
+
+Eliphalet looked mysterious and knowing. He did not reply.
+
+"And young Colfax ain't precisely a pauper," said Miss Crane.
+
+"I'll risk a good deal that she don't marry Colfax," said Mr. Hopper.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" cried Mrs. Abner. It ain't broke off?"
+
+"No," he answered, "it ain't broke off. But I callate she won't have him
+when the time comes. She's got too much sense."
+
+Heavy at heart, Stephen climbed the stairs, thanking heaven that he had
+not been drawn into the controversy. A partial comprehension of Mr.
+Hopper was dawning upon him. He suspected that gentleman of an aggressive
+determination to achieve wealth, and the power which comes with it, for
+the purpose of using that power upon those beneath him. Nay, when he
+thought over his conversation, he suspected him of more,--of the
+intention to marry Virginia Carvel.
+
+It will be seen whether Stephen was right or wrong.
+
+He took a walk that afternoon, as far out as a place called Lindell's
+Grove, which afterward became historic. And when he returned to the
+house, his mother handed him a, little white envelope.
+
+"It came while you were out," she said.
+
+He turned it over, and stared at his name written across the front in a
+feminine hand In those days young ladies did not write in the bold and
+masculine manner now deemed proper. Stephen stared at the note, manlike,
+and pondered.
+
+"Who brought it, mother?"
+
+"Why don't you open it, and see?" asked his mother with a smile.
+
+He took the suggestion. What a funny formal little note we should think
+it now! It was not funny to Stephen--then. He read it, and he read it
+again, and finally he walked over to the window, still holding it in his
+hand.
+
+Some mothers would have shown their curiosity. Mrs. Brice did not,
+wherein she proved herself their superiors in the knowledge of mankind.
+
+Stephen stood for a long while looking out into the gathering dusk. Then
+he went over to the fireplace and began tearing the note into little
+bits. Only once did he pause, to look again at his name on the envelope.
+
+"It is an invitation to Miss Carvel's party," he said.
+
+By Thursday of that week the Brices, with thanksgiving in their hearts,
+had taken possession of Mr. Brinsmade's little house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"MISS JINNY"
+
+The years have sped indeed since that gray December when Miss Virginia
+Carvel became eighteen. Old St. Louis has changed from a pleasant
+Southern town to a bustling city, and a high building stands on the site
+of that wide and hospitable home of Colonel Carvel. And the Colonel's
+thoughts that morning, as Ned shaved him, flew back through the years to
+a gently rolling Kentucky countryside, and a pillared white house among
+the oaks. He was riding again with Beatrice Colfax in the springtime.
+Again he stretched out his arm as if to seize her bridle-hand, and he
+felt the thoroughbred rear. Then the vision faded, and the memory of his
+dead wife became an angel's face, far--so far away.
+
+He had brought her to St. Louis, and with his inheritance had founded his
+business, and built the great double house on the corner. The child came,
+and was named after the noble state which had given so many of her sons
+to the service of the Republic.
+
+Five simple, happy years--then war. A black war of conquest which, like
+many such, was to add to the nation's fame and greatness: Glory beckoned,
+honor called--or Comyn Carvel felt them. With nothing of the profession
+of arms save that born in the Carvels, he kissed Beatrice farewell and
+steamed down the Mississippi, a captain in Missouri regiment. The young
+wife was ailing. Anguish killed her. Had Comyn Carvel been selfish?
+
+Ned, as he shaved his master's face, read his thoughts by the strange
+sympathy of love. He had heard the last pitiful words of his mistress.
+Had listened, choking, to Dr. Posthlewaite as he read the sublime service
+of the burial of the dead. It was Ned who had met his master, the
+Colonel, at the levee, and had fallen sobbing at his feet.
+
+Long after he was shaved that morning, the Colonel sat rapt in his chair,
+while the faithful servant busied himself about the room, one eye on his
+master the while. But presently Mr. Carvel's revery is broken by the
+swift rustle of a dress, and a girlish figure flutters in and plants
+itself on the wide arm of his mahogany barber chair, Mammy Easter in the
+door behind her. And the Colonel, stretching forth his hands, strains her
+to him, and then holds her away that he may look and look again into her
+face.
+
+"Honey," he said, "I was thinking of your mother."
+
+Virginia raised her eyes to the painting on the wall over the marble
+mantel. The face under the heavy coils of brown hair was sweet and
+gentle, delicately feminine. It had an expression of sorrow that seemed a
+prophecy.
+
+The Colonel's hand strayed upward to Virginia's head.
+
+"You are not like her, honey," he said: "You may see for yourself. You
+are more like your Aunt Bess, who lived in Baltimore, and she--"
+
+"I know," said Virginia, "she was the image of the beauty, Dorothy
+Manners, who married my great-grandfather."
+
+"Yes, Jinny," replied the Colonel, smiling. "That is so. You are somewhat
+like your great-grandmother."
+
+"Somewhat!" cried Virginia, putting her hand over his mouth, "I like
+that. You and Captain Lige are always afraid of turning my head. I need
+not be a beauty to resemble her. I know that I am like her. When you took
+me on to Calvert House to see Uncle Daniel that time, I remember the
+picture by, by--"
+
+"Sir Joshua Reynolds."
+
+"Yes, Sir Joshua."
+
+"You were only eleven," says the Colonel.
+
+"She is not a difficult person to remember."
+
+"No," said Mr. Carvel, laughing, "especially if you have lived with her."
+
+"Not that I wish to be that kind," said Virginia, meditatively,--"to take
+London by storm, and keep a man dangling for years."
+
+"But he got her in the end," said the Colonel. "Where did you hear all
+this?" he asked.
+
+"Uncle Daniel told me. He has Richard Carvel's diary."
+
+"And a very honorable record it is," exclaimed the Colonel. "Jinny, we
+shall read it together when we go a-visiting to Culvert House. I remember
+the old gentleman as well as if I had seen him yesterday."
+
+Virginia appeared thoughtful.
+
+"Pa," she began, "Pa, did you ever see the pearls Dorothy Carvel wore on
+her wedding day? What makes you jump like that? Did you ever see them?"
+
+"Well, I reckon I did," replied the Colonel, gazing at her steadfastly.
+
+"Pa, Uncle Daniel told me that I was to have that necklace when I was old
+enough."
+
+"Law!" said the Colonel, fidgeting, "your Uncle Daniel was just fooling
+you."
+
+"He's a bachelor," said Virginia; what use has he got for it?"
+
+"Why," says the Colonel, "he's a young man yet, your uncle, only
+fifty-three. I've known older fools than he to go and do it. Eh, Ned?"
+
+"Yes, marsa. Yes, suh. I've seed 'em at seventy, an' shufflin' about
+peart as Marse Clarence's gamecocks. Why, dar was old Marse Ludlow--"
+
+"Now, Mister Johnson," Virginia put in severely, "no more about old
+Ludlow."
+
+Ned grinned from ear to ear, and in the ecstasy of his delight dropped
+the Colonel's clothes-brush. "Lan' sakes!" he cried, "ef she ain't
+recommembered." Recovering his gravity and the brush simultaneously, he
+made Virginia a low bow. "Mornin', Miss Jinny. I sholy is gwinter s'lute
+you dis day. May de good Lawd make you happy, Miss Jinny, an' give you a
+good husban'--"
+
+"Thank you, Mister Johnson, thank you," said Virginia, blushing.
+
+"How come she recommembered, Marse Comyn? Dat's de quality. Dat's why.
+Doan't you talk to Ned 'bout de quality, Marsa."
+
+"And when did I ever talk to you about the quality, you scalawag?" asks
+the Colonel, laughing.
+
+"Th' ain't none 'cept de bes' quality keep they word dat-a-way," said
+Ned, as he went off to tell Uncle Ben in the kitchen.
+
+Was there ever, in all this wide country, a good cook who was not a
+tyrant? Uncle Ben Carvel was a veritable emperor in his own domain; and
+the Colonel himself, had he desired to enter the kitchen, would have been
+obliged to come with humble and submissive spirit. As for Virginia, she
+had had since childhood more than one passage at arms with Uncle Ben. And
+the question of who had come off victorious had been the subject of many
+a debate below stairs.
+
+There were a few days in the year, however, when Uncle Ben permitted the
+sanctity of his territory to be violated. One was the seventh of
+December. On such a day it was his habit to retire to the broken chair
+beside the sink (the chair to which he had clung for five-and-twenty
+years). There he would sit, blinking, and carrying on the while an
+undercurrent of protests and rumblings, while Miss Virginia and other
+young ladies mixed and chopped and boiled and baked and gossiped. But woe
+to the unfortunate Rosetta if she overstepped the bounds of respect! Woe
+to Ned or Jackson or Tato, if they came an inch over the threshold from
+the hall beyond! Even Aunt Easter stepped gingerly, though she was wont
+to affirm, when assisting Miss Jinny in her toilet, an absolute contempt
+for Ben's commands.
+
+"So Ben ordered you out, Mammy?" Virginia would say mischievously.
+
+"Order me out! Hugh! think I'se skeered o' him, honey? Reckon I'd frail
+'em good ef he cotched hole of me with his black hands. Jes' let him try
+to come upstairs once, honey, an' see what I say to 'm."
+
+Nevertheless Ben had, on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, ordered
+Mammy Easter out, and she had gone. And now, as she was working the beat
+biscuits to be baked that evening, Uncle Ben's eye rested on her with
+suspicion.
+
+What mere man may write with any confidence of the delicacies which were
+prepared in Uncle's kitchen that morning? No need in those days of
+cooking schools. What Southern lady, to the manner born, is not a cook
+from the cradle? Even Ben noted with approval Miss Virginia's scorn for
+pecks and pints, and grunted with satisfaction over the accurate pinches
+of spices and flavors which she used. And he did Miss Eugenie the honor
+to eat one of her praleens.
+
+That night came Captain Lige Brent, the figure of an eager and determined
+man swinging up the street, and pulling out his watch under every
+lamp-post. And in his haste, in the darkness of a midblock, he ran into
+another solid body clad in high boots and an old army overcoat, beside a
+wood wagon.
+
+"Howdy, Captain," said he of the high boots.
+
+"Well, I just thought as much," was the energetic reply; "minute I seen
+the rig I knew Captain Grant was behind it."
+
+He held out a big hand, which Captain Grant clasped, just looking at his
+own with a smile. The stranger was Captain Elijah Brent of the
+'Louisiana'.
+
+"Now," said Brent, "I'll just bet a full cargo that you're off to the
+Planters' House, and smoke an El Sol with the boys."
+
+Mr. Grant nodded. "You're keen, Captain," said he.
+
+"I've got something here that'll outlast an El Sol a whole day,"
+continued Captain Breast, tugging at his pocket and pulling out a
+six-inch cigar as black as the night. "Just you try that."
+
+The Captain instantly struck a match on his boot and was puffing in a
+silent enjoyment which delighted his friend.
+
+"Reckon he don't bring out cigars when you make him a call," said the
+steamboat captain, jerking his thumb up at the house. It was Mr. Jacob
+Cluyme's.
+
+Captain Grant did not reply to that, nor did Captain Lige expect him to,
+as it was the custom of this strange and silent man to speak ill of no
+one. He turned rather to put the stakes back into his wagon.
+
+"Where are you off to, Lige?" he asked.
+
+"Lord bless my soul," said Captain Lige, "to think that I could forget!"
+He tucked a bundle tighter under his arm. "Grant, did you ever see my
+little sweetheart, Jinny Carvel?" The Captain sighed. "She ain't little
+any more, and she eighteen to-day."
+
+Captain Grant clapped his hand to his forehead.
+
+"Say, Lige," said he, "that reminds me. A month or so ago I pulled a
+fellow out of Renault's area across from there. First I thought he was a
+thief. After he got away I saw the Colonel and his daughter in the
+window."
+
+Instantly Captain Lige became excited, and seized Captain Grant by the
+cape of his overcoat.
+
+"Say, Grant, what kind of appearing fellow was he?"
+
+"Short, thick-set, blocky face."
+
+"I reckon I know," said Breast, bringing down his fist on the wagon
+board; "I've had my eye on him for some little time."
+
+He walked around the block twice after Captain Grant had driven down the
+muddy street, before he composed himself to enter the Carvel mansion. He
+paid no attention to the salutations of Jackson, the butler, who saw him
+coming and opened the door, but climbed the stairs to the sitting-room.
+
+"Why, Captain Lige, you must have put wings on the Louisiana," said
+Virginia, rising joyfully from the arm of her father's chair to meet him.
+"We had given you up."
+
+"What?" cried the Captain. "Give me up? Don't you know better than that?
+What, give me up when I never missed a birthday,--and this the best of
+all of 'em.
+
+"If your pa had got sight of me shovin' in wood and cussin' the pilot for
+slowin' at the crossin's, he'd never let you ride in my boat again. Bill
+Jenks said: 'Are you plum crazy, Brent? Look at them cressets.' 'Five
+dollars'' says I; 'wouldn't go in for five hundred. To-morrow's Jinny
+Carvel's birthday, and I've just got to be there.' I reckon the time's
+come when I've got to say Miss Jinny," he added ruefully.
+
+The Colonel rose, laughing, and hit the Captain on the back.
+
+"Drat you, Lige, why don't you kiss the girl? Can't you see she's
+waiting?"
+
+The honest Captain stole one glance at Virginia, and turned red copper
+color.
+
+"Shucks, Colonel, I can't be kissing her always. What'll her husband
+say?"
+
+For an instant Mr. Carvel's brow clouded.
+
+"We'll not talk of husbands yet awhile, Lige."
+
+Virginia went up to Captain Lige, deftly twisted into shape his black
+tie, and kissed him on the check. How his face burned when she touched
+him.
+
+"There!" said she, "and don't you ever dare to treat me as a young lady.
+Why, Pa, he's blushing like a girl. I know. He's ashamed to kiss me now.
+He's going to be married at last to that Creole girl in New Orleans."
+
+The Colonel slapped his knee, winked slyly at Lige, while Virginia began
+to sing:
+
+       "I built me a house on the mountain so high,
+        To gaze at my true love as she do go by."
+
+"There's only one I'd ever marry, Jinny," protested the Captain, soberly,
+"and I'm a heap too old for her. But I've seen a youngster that might
+mate with her, Colonel," he added mischievously. "If he just wasn't a
+Yankee. Jinny, what's the story I hear about Judge Whipple's young man
+buying Hester?"
+
+Mr. Carvel looked uneasy. It was Virginia's turn to blush, and she grew
+red as a peony.
+
+"He's a tall, hateful, Black Republican Yankee!" she said.
+
+"Phee-ew!" whistled the Captain. "Any more epithets?"
+
+"He's a nasty Abolitionist!"
+
+"There you do him wrong, honey," the Colonel put in.
+
+"I hear he took Hester to Miss Crane's," the Captain continued, filling
+the room with his hearty laughter. "That boy has sand enough, Jinny; I'd
+like to know him."
+
+"You'll have that priceless opportunity to-night," retorted Miss
+Virginia, as she flung herself out of the room. "Pa has made me invite
+him to my party."
+
+"Here, Jinny! Hold on!" cried the Captain, running after her. "I've got
+something for you."
+
+She stopped on the stairs, hesitating. Whereupon the Captain hastily
+ripped open the bundle under his arm and produced a very handsome India
+shawl. With a cry of delight Virginia threw it over her shoulders and ran
+to the long glass between the high windows.
+
+"Who spoils her, Lige?" asked the Colonel, fondly.
+
+"Her father, I reckon," was the prompt reply.
+
+"Who spoils you, Jinny?"
+
+"Captain Lige," said she, turning to him. "If you had only kept the
+presents you have brought me from New Orleans, you might sell out your
+steamboat and be a rich man."
+
+"He is a rich man," said the Colonel, promptly. "Did you ever miss
+bringing her a present, Lige?" he asked.
+
+"When the Cora Anderson burnt," answered the Captain.
+
+"Why," cried Virginia, "you brought me a piece of her wheel, with the
+char on it. You swam ashore with it."
+
+"So I did," said Captain Brent. "I had forgotten that. It was when the
+French dress, with the furbelows, which Madame Pitou had gotten me from
+Paris for you, was lost."
+
+"And I think I liked the piece of wheel better," says Virginia. "It was
+brought me by a brave man, the last to leave his boat."
+
+"And who should be the last to leave, but the captain? I saw the thing in
+the water; and I just thought we ought to have a relic."
+
+"Lige," said the Colonel, putting up his feet, "do you remember the
+French toys you used to bring up here from New Orleans?"
+
+"Colonel," replied Brent, "do you recall the rough and uncouth young
+citizen who came over here from Cincinnati, as clerk on the Vicksburg?"
+
+"I remember, sir, that he was so promising that they made him provisional
+captain the next trip, and he was not yet twenty-four years of age."
+
+"And do you remember buying the Vicksburg at the sheriff's sale for
+twenty thousand dollars, and handing her over to young Brent, and saying,
+'There, my son, she's your boat, and you can pay for her when you like'?"
+
+"Shucks, Brent!" said Mr. Carvel, sternly, "your memory's too good. But I
+proved myself a good business man, Jinny; he paid for her in a year."
+
+"You don't mean that you made him pay you for the boat?" cried Jinny.
+"Why, Pa, I didn't think you were that mean!"
+
+The two men laughed heartily.
+
+"I was a heap meaner," said her father. "I made him pay interest."
+
+Virginia drew in her breath, and looked at the Colonel in amazement.
+
+"He's the meanest man I know," said Captain Lige. "He made me pay
+interest, and a mint julep."
+
+"Upon my word, Pa," said Miss Virginia, soberly, "I shouldn't have
+believed it of you."
+
+Just then Jackson, in his white jacket; came to announce that supper was
+ready, and they met Ned at the dining-room door, fairly staggering under a
+load of roses.
+
+"Marse Clarence done send 'em in, des picked out'n de hothouse dis
+afternoon, Miss Jinny. Jackson, fotch a bowl!"
+
+"No," said Virginia. She took the flowers from Ned, one by one, and to
+the wonderment of Captain Lige and her--father strewed them hither and
+thither upon the table until the white cloth was hid by the red flowers.
+The Colonel stroked his goatee and nudged Captain Lige.
+
+"Look-a-there, now," said he. "Any other woman would have spent two
+mortal hours stickin' 'em in china."
+
+Virginia, having critically surveyed her work, amid exclamations from Ned
+and Jackson, had gone around to her place. And there upon her plate lay a
+pearl necklace. For an instant she clapped her palms together, staring at
+it in bewilderment. And once more the little childish cry of delight,
+long sweet to the Colonel's ears, escaped her.
+
+"Pa," she said, "is it--?" And there she stopped, for fear that it might
+not be. But he nodded encouragingly.
+
+"Dorothy Carvel's necklace! No, it can't be."
+
+"Yes, honey," said the Colonel. "Your Uncle Daniel sent it, as he
+promised. And when you go upstairs, if Easter has done as I told her, you
+will see a primrose dress with blue coin-flowers on your bed. Daniel
+thought you might like that, too, for a keepsake. Dorothy Manners wore it
+in London, when she was a girl."
+
+And so Virginia ran and threw her arms about her father's neck, and
+kissed him again and again. And lest the Captain feel badly, she laid his
+India shawl beside her; and the necklace upon it.
+
+What a joyful supper they had,--just the three of them! And as the fresh
+roses filled the room with fragrance, Virginia filled it with youth and
+spirits, and Mr. Carvel and the Captain with honest, manly merriment. And
+Jackson plied Captain Brent (who was a prime favorite in that house) with
+broiled chicken and hot beat biscuits and with waffles, until at length
+he lay back in his chair and heaved a sigh of content, lighting a cigar.
+And then Virginia, with a little curtsey to both of them, ran off to
+dress for the party.
+
+"Well," said Captain Brent, "I reckon there'll be gay goings-on here
+to-night. I wouldn't miss the sight of 'em, Colonel, for all the cargoes
+on the Mississippi. Ain't there anything I can do?"
+
+"No, thank you, Lige," Mr. Carvel answered. "Do you remember, one morning
+some five years ago, when I took in at the store a Yankee named Hopper?
+You didn't like him, I believe."
+
+Captain Brent jumped, and the ashes of his cigar fell on his coat. He had
+forgotten his conversation with Captain Grant.
+
+"I reckon I do," he said dryly.
+
+For a moment he was on the point of telling the affair. Then he desisted.
+He could not be sure of Eliphalet from Grant's description. So he decided
+to await a better time. Captain Brent was one to make sure of his channel
+before going ahead.
+
+"Well," continued the Colonel, "I have been rather pushed the last week,
+and Hopper managed things for this dance. He got the music, and saw the
+confectioner. But he made such a close bargain with both of 'em that they
+came around to me afterward," he added, laughing.
+
+"Is he coming here to-night?" demanded the Captain, looking disgusted.
+
+"Lige," replied the Colonel, "you never do get over a prejudice. Yes,
+he's coming, just to oversee things. He seems to have mighty little
+pleasure, and he's got the best business head I ever did see. A Yankee,"
+said Mr. Carvel, meditatively, as he put on his hat, "a Yankee, when he
+will work, works like all possessed. Hood don't like him any more than
+you do, but he allows Hopper is a natural-born business man. Last month
+Samuels got tight, and Wright & Company were going to place the largest
+order in years. I called in Hood. 'Go yourself, Colonel,' says he. I I'm
+too old to solicit business, Hood,' said I. 'Then there's only one man to
+send,' says he, 'young Hopper. He'll get the order, or I'll give up this
+place I've had for twenty years.' Hopper 'callated' to get it, and
+another small one pitched in. And you'd die laughing, Lige, to hear how
+he did it."
+
+"Some slickness, I'll gamble," grunted Captain Lige.
+
+"Well, I reckon 'twas slick," said the Colonel, thoughtfully. "You know
+old man Wright hates a solicitor like poison. He has his notions. And
+maybe you've noticed signs stuck up all over his store, 'No Solicitors
+nor Travelling Men Allowed Here'"
+
+The Captain nodded.
+
+"But Hopper--Hopper walks in, sir, bold as you please, right past the
+signs till he comes to the old man's cage. 'I want to see Mr. Wright,'
+says he to the clerk. And the clerk begins to grin. 'Name, please,' says
+he. Mr. Hopper whips out his business card. 'What!' shouts old Wright,
+flying 'round in his chair, 'what the devil does this mean? Can't you
+read, sir?' 'callate to,' says Mr. Hopper. 'And you dare to come in here?
+
+"'Business is business,' says Hopper. 'You "callate"!' bellowed the old
+man; 'I reckon you're a damned Yankee. I reckon I'll upset your
+"callations" for once. And if I catch you in here again, I'll wring your
+neck like a roostah's. Git!'"
+
+"Who told you this?" asked Captain Brent.
+
+"Wright himself,--afterward," replied Mr. Carvel, laughing. "But listen,
+Lige. The old man lives at the Planters' House, you know. What does Mr.
+Hopper do but go 'round there that very night and give a nigger two bits
+to put him at the old man's table. When Wright comes and sees him, he
+nearly has one of his apoplectic fits. But in marches Hopper the next
+morning with twice the order. The good Lord knows how he did it."
+
+There was a silence. Then the door-bell rang.
+
+"He's dangerous," said the Captain, emphatically. "That's what I call
+him."
+
+"The Yankees are changing business in this town," was the Colonel's
+answer. "We've got to keep the pace, Lige."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE PARTY
+
+To gentle Miss Anne Brinsmade, to Puss Russell of the mischievous eyes,
+and even to timid Eugenie Renault, the question that burned was: Would he
+come, or would he not? And, secondarily, how would Virginia treat him if
+he came? Put our friend Stephen for the subjective, and Miss Carvers
+party for the objective in the above, and we have the clew. For very
+young girls are given to making much out of a very little in such
+matters. If Virginia had not gotten angry when she had been teased a
+fortnight before, all would have been well.
+
+Even Puss, who walked where angels feared to tread, did not dare to go
+too far with Virginia. She had taken care before the day of the party to
+beg forgiveness with considerable humility. It had been granted with a
+queenly generosity. And after that none of the bevy had dared to broach
+the subject to Virginia. Jack Brinsmade had. He told Puss afterward that
+when Virginia got through with him, he felt as if he had taken a rapid
+trip through the wheel-house of a large steamer. Puss tried, by various
+ingenious devices, to learn whether Mr. Brice had accepted his
+invitation. She failed.
+
+These things added a zest to a party long looked forward to amongst
+Virginia's intimates. In those days young ladies did not "come out" so
+frankly as they do now. Mothers did not announce to the world that they
+possessed marriageable daughters. The world was supposed to know that.
+And then the matrimonial market was feverishly active. Young men proposed
+as naturally as they now ask a young girl to go for a walk,--and were
+refused quite as naturally.  An offer of marriage was not the fearful and
+wonderful thing--to be dealt with gingerly--which it has since become.
+Seventeen was often the age at which they began. And one of the big
+Catherwood boys had a habit of laying his heart and hand at Virginia's
+feet once a month. Nor did his vanity suffer greatly when she laughed at
+him.
+
+It was with a flutter of excitement, therefore, that Miss Carvel's guests
+flitted past Jackson, who held the door open obsequiously. The boldest of
+them took a rapid survey of the big parlor, before they put foot on the
+stairs to see whether Mr. Brice had yet arrived. And if their curiosity
+held them too long, they were usually kissed by the Colonel.
+
+Mr. Carvel shook hands heartily with the young mean and called them by
+their first names, for he knew most of their fathers and grandfathers.
+And if an older gentleman arrived, perhaps the two might be seen going
+down the hall together, arm in arm. So came his beloved enemy, Judge
+Whipple, who did not make an excursion to the rear regions of the house
+with the Colonel; but they stood and discussed Mr. President Buchanan's
+responsibility for the recent panic, until the band, which Mr. Hopper had
+stationed under the stairs, drowned their voices.
+
+As we enter the room, there stands Virginia under the rainbowed prisms of
+the great chandelier, receiving. But here was suddenly a woman of
+twenty-eight, where only this evening we knew a slip of a girl. It was a
+trick she had, to become majestic in a ball-gown. She held her head high,
+as a woman should, and at her slender throat glowed the pearls of Dorothy
+Manners.
+
+The result of all this was to strike a little awe into the souls of many
+of her playmates. Little Eugenie nearly dropped a curtsey. Belle Cluyme
+was so impressed that she forgot for a whole hour to be spiteful. But
+Puss Russell kissed her on both cheeks, and asked her if she really
+wasn't nervous.
+
+"Nervous!" exclaimed Jinny, "why?"
+
+Miss Russell glanced significantly towards the doorway. But she said
+nothing to her hostess, for fear of marring an otherwise happy occasion.
+She retired with Jack Brim made to a corner, where she recited:--
+
+     "Oh young Lochinvar is come out of the East;
+     Of millions of Yankees I love him the least."
+
+"What a joke if he should come!" cried Jack.
+
+Miss Russell gasped.
+
+Just as Mr. Clarence Colfax, resplendent in new evening clothes just
+arrived from New York, was pressing his claim for the first dance with
+his cousin in opposition to numerous other claims, the chatter of the
+guests died away. Virginia turned her head, and for an instant the pearls
+trembled on her neck. There was a young man cordially and unconcernedly
+shaking hands with her father and Captain Lige. Her memory of that moment
+is, strangely, not of his face (she did not deign to look at that), but
+of the muscle of his shoulder half revealed as he stretched forth his
+arm.
+
+Young Mr. Colfax bent over to her ear.
+
+"Virginia," he whispered earnestly, almost fiercely, Virginia, who
+invited him here?"
+
+"I did," said Virginia, calmly, "of course. Who invites any one here?"
+
+"But!" cried Clarence, "do you know who he is?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, "I know. And is that any reason why he should not
+come here as a guest? Would you bar any gentleman from your house on
+account of his convictions?"
+
+Ah, Virginia, who had thought to hear that argument from your lips? What
+would frank Captain Lige say of the consistency of women, if he heard you
+now? And how give an account of yourself to Anne Brinsmade? What
+contrariness has set you so intense against your own argument?
+
+Before one can answer this, before Mr. Clarence can recover from his
+astonishment and remind her of her vehement words on the subject at
+Bellegarde, Mr. Stephen is making thither with the air of one who
+conquers. Again the natural contrariness of women. What bare-faced
+impudence! Has he no shame that he should hold his head so high? She
+feels her color mounting, even as her resentment rises at his
+self-possession, and yet she would have despised him had he shown
+self-consciousness in gait or manner in the sight of her assembled
+guests. Nearly as tall as the Colonel himself, he is plainly seen, and
+Miss Puss in her corner does not have to stand on tiptoe. Mr. Carvel does
+the honors of the introduction.
+
+But a daughter of the Carvels was not to fail before such a paltry
+situation as this. Shall it be confessed that curiosity stepped into the
+breach? As she gave him her hand she was wondering how he would act.
+
+As a matter of fact he acted detestably. He said nothing whatever, but
+stood regarding her with a clear eye and a face by far too severe. The
+thought that he was meditating on the incident of the auction sale
+crossed through her mind, and made her blood simmer. How dared he behave
+so! The occasion called for a little small talk. An evil spirit took
+possession of Virginia. She turned.
+
+"Mr. Brice, do you know my cousin, Mr. Colfax?" she said.
+
+Mr. Brice bowed. "I know Mr. Colfax by sight," he replied.
+
+Then Mr. Colfax made a stiff bow. To this new phase his sense of humor
+did not rise. Mr. Brice was a Yankee and no gentleman, inasmuch as he had
+overbid a lady for Hester.
+
+"Have you come here to live, Mr. Brice?" he asked.
+
+The Colonel eyed his nephew sharply. But Stephen smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said, "if I can presently make enough to keep me alive." Then
+turning to Virginia, he said, "Will you dance, Miss Carvel?"
+
+The effrontery of this demand quite drew the breath from the impatient
+young gentlemen who had been waiting their turn. Several of them spoke up
+in remonstrance. And for the moment (let one confess it who knows),
+Virginia was almost tempted to lay her arm in his. Then she made a bow
+that would have been quite as effective the length of the room.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Brice," she said, "but I am engaged to Mr. Colfax."
+
+Abstractedly he watched her glide away in her cousin's arms. Stephen had
+a way of being preoccupied at such times. When he grew older he would
+walk the length of Olive Street, look into face after face of
+acquaintances, not a quiver of recognition in his eyes. But most probably
+the next week he would win a brilliant case in the Supreme Court. And so
+now, indifferent to the amusement of some about him, he stood staring
+after Virginia and Clarence. Where had he seen Colfax's face before he
+came West? Ah, he knew. Many, many years before he had stood with his
+father in the mellow light of the long gallery at Hollingdean, Kent,
+before a portrait of the Stuarts' time. The face was that of one of Lord
+Northwell's ancestors, a sporting nobleman of the time of the second
+Charles. It was a head which compelled one to pause before it. Strangely
+enough,--it was the head likewise of Clarence Colfax.
+
+The image of it Stephen had carried undimmed in the eye of his memory.
+White-haired Northwell's story, also. It was not a story that Mr. Brice
+had expected his small son to grasp. As a matter of fact Stephen had not
+grasped it then--but years afterward. It was not a pleasant story,--and
+yet there was much of credit in it to the young rake its subject,--of
+dash and courage and princely generosity beside the profligacy and
+incontinence.
+
+The face had impressed him, with its story. He had often dreamed of it,
+and of the lace collar over the dull-gold velvet that became it so well.
+And here it was at last, in a city west of the Mississippi River. Here
+were the same delicately chiselled features, with their pallor, and
+satiety engraved there at one and twenty. Here was the same lazy scorn in
+the eyes, and the look which sleeplessness gives to the lids: the hair,
+straight and fine and black; the wilful indulgence--not of one life, but
+of generations--about the mouth; the pointed chin. And yet it was a fact
+to dare anything, and to do anything.
+
+One thing more ere we have done with that which no man may explain. Had
+he dreamed, too, of the girl? Of Virginia? Stephen might not tell, but
+thrice had the Colonel spoken to him before he answered.
+
+"You must meet some of these young ladies, sir."
+
+It was little wonder that Puss Russell thought him dull on that first
+occasion. Out of whom condescension is to flow is a matter of which
+Heaven takes no cognizance. To use her own words, Puss thought him "stuck
+up," when he should have been grateful. We know that Stephen was not
+stuck up, and later Miss Russell learned that likewise. Very naturally
+she took preoccupation for indifference. It is a matter worth recording,
+however, that she did not tease him, because she did not dare. He did not
+ask her to dance, which was rude. So she passed him back to Mr. Carvel,
+who introduced him to Miss Renault and Miss Saint Cyr, and other young
+ladies of the best French families. And finally, drifting hither and
+thither with his eyes on Virginia, in an evil moment he was presented to
+Mrs. Colfax. Perhaps it has been guessed that Mrs. Colfax was a very
+great lady indeed, albeit the daughter of an overseer. She bore Addison
+Colfax's name, spent his fortune, and retained her good looks. On this
+particular occasion she was enjoying herself quite as much as any young
+girl in the room, and, while resting from a waltz, was regaling a number
+of gentlemen with a humorous account of a scandal at the Virginia
+Spring's.
+
+None but a great lady could have meted out the punishment administered to
+poor Stephen. None but a great lady could have concerned it. And he, who
+had never been snubbed before, fell headlong into her trap. How was the
+boy to know that there was no heart in the smile with which she greeted
+him? It was all over in an instant. She continued to talk about Virginia
+Springs, "Oh, Mr. Brice, of course you have been there. Of course you
+know the Edmunds. No? You haven't been there? You don't know the Edmunds?
+I thought every body had been there. Charles, you look as if you were
+just dying to waltz. Let's have a turn before the music stops."
+
+And so she whirled away, leaving Stephen forlorn, a little too angry to
+be amused just then. In that state he spied a gentleman coming towards
+him--a gentleman the sight of whom he soon came to associate with all
+that is good and kindly in this world, Mr. Brinsmade. And now he put his
+hand on Stephen's shoulder. Whether he had seen the incident just past,
+who can tell?
+
+"My son," said he, "I am delighted to see you here. Now that we are such
+near neighbors, we must be nearer friends. You must know my wife, and my
+son Jack, and my daughter Anne."
+
+Mrs. Brinsmade was a pleasant little body, but plainly not a fit mate for
+her husband. Jack gave Stephen a warm grasp of the hand, and an amused
+look. As for Anne, she was more like her father; she was Stephen's friend
+from that hour.
+
+"I have seen you quite often, going in at your gate, Mr. Brice. And I
+have seen your mother, too. I like her," said Anne. "She has such a
+wonderful face." And the girl raised her truthful blue eyes to his.
+
+"My mother would be delighted to know you," he ventured, not knowing what
+else to say. It was an effort for him to reflect upon their new situation
+as poor tenants to a wealthy family.
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" cried Anne. "I shall call on her to-morrow, with
+mother. Do you know, Mr. Brice," she continued, "do you know that your
+mother is just the person I should go to if I were in trouble, whether I
+knew her or not?"
+
+"I have found her a good person in trouble," said Stephen, simply. He
+might have said the same of Anne.
+
+Anne was enchanted. She had thought him cold, but these words belied
+that. She had wrapped him in that diaphanous substance with which young
+ladies (and sometimes older ones) are wont to deck their heroes. She had
+approached a mystery--to find it human, as are many mysteries. But thank
+heaven that she found a dignity, a seriousness,--and these more than
+satisfied her. Likewise, she discovered something she had not looked for,
+an occasional way of saying things that made her laugh. She danced with
+him, and passed him back to Miss Puss Russell, who was better pleased
+this time; she passed him on to her sister, who also danced with him, and
+sent him upstairs for her handkerchief.
+
+Nevertheless, Stephen was troubled. As the evening wore on, he was more
+and more aware of an uncompromising attitude in his young hostess, whom
+he had seen whispering to various young ladies from behind her fan as
+they passed her. He had not felt equal to asking her to dance a second
+time. Honest Captain Lige Breast, who seemed to have taken a fancy to
+him, bandied him on his lack of courage with humor that was a little
+rough. And, to Stephen's amazement, even Judge Whipple had pricked him
+on.
+
+It was on his way upstairs after Emily Russell's handkerchief that he ran
+across another acquaintance. Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, in Sunday broadcloth,
+was seated on the landing, his head lowered to the level of the top of
+the high door of the parlor. Stephen caught a glimpse of the picture
+whereon his eyes were fixed. Perhaps it is needless to add that Miss
+Virginia Carvel formed the central figure of it.
+
+"Enjoy in' yourself?" asked Mr. Hopper.
+
+Stephen countered.
+
+"Are you?" he asked.
+
+"So so," said Mr. Hopper, and added darkly: "I ain't in no hurry. Just
+now they callate I'm about good enough to manage the business end of an
+affair like this here. I guess I can wait. But some day," said he,
+suddenly barring Stephen's way, "some day I'll give a party. And hark to
+me when I tell you that these here aristocrats 'll be glad enough to get
+invitations."
+
+Stephen pushed past coldly. This time the man made him shiver. The
+incident was all that was needed to dishearten and disgust him. Kindly as
+he had been treated by others, far back in his soul was a thing that
+rankled. Shall it be told crudely why he went that night? Stephen Brice,
+who would not lie to others, lied to himself. And when he came downstairs
+again and presented Miss Emily with her handkerchief, his next move was
+in his mind. And that was to say good-night to the Colonel, and more
+frigidly to Miss Carvel herself. But music has upset many a man's
+calculations.
+
+The strains of the Jenny Lind waltz were beginning to float through the
+rooms. There was Miss Virginia in a corner of the big parlor, for the
+moment alone with her cousin. And thither Stephen sternly strode. Not a
+sign did she give of being aware of his presence until he stood before
+her. Even then she did not lift her eyes. But she said: "So you have come
+at last to try again, Mr. Brice?"
+
+And Mr. Brice said: "If you will do me the honor, Miss Carvel."
+
+She did not reply at once. Clarence Colfax got to his feet. Then she
+looked up at the two men as they stood side by side, and perhaps swept
+them both in an instant's comparison.
+
+The New Englander's face must have reminded her more of her own father,
+Colonel Carvel. It possessed, from generations known, the power to
+control itself. She afterwards admitted that she accepted him to tease
+Clarence. Miss Russell, whose intuitions are usually correct, does not
+believe this.
+
+"I will dance with you," said Virginia.
+
+But, once in his arms, she seemed like a wild thing, resisting. Although
+her gown brushed his coat, the space between them was infinite, and her
+hand lay limp in his, unresponsive of his own pressure. Not so her feet;
+they caught the step and moved with the rhythm of the music, and round
+the room they swung. More than one pair paused in the dance to watch
+them. Then, as they glided past the door, Stephen was disagreeably
+conscious of some one gazing down from above, and he recalled Eliphalet
+Hopper and his position. The sneer from Eliphalet's seemed to penetrate
+like a chilly draught.
+
+All at once, Virginia felt her partner gathering up his strength, and by
+some compelling force, more of wild than of muscle, draw her nearer.
+Unwillingly her hand tightened under his, and her blood beat faster and
+her color came and went as they two moved as one. Anger--helpless anger
+--took possession of her as she saw the smiles on the faces of her
+friends, and Puss Russell mockingly throwing a kiss as she passed her.
+And then, strange in the telling, a thrill as of power rose within her
+which she strove against in vain. A knowledge of him who guided her so
+swiftly, so unerringly, which she had felt with no other man. Faster and
+faster they stepped, each forgetful of self and place, until the waltz
+came suddenly to a stop.
+
+"By gum!" said Captain Lige to Judge Whipple, "you can whollop me on my
+own forecastle if they ain't the handsomest couple I ever did see."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Crisis, Volume 2, by Winston Churchill
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