The Crisis, Volume 6

night the tortured bricks flung back angrily the heat with which he had filled them. Gre

we don't seem to be much use in town,

South. For, one fine morning toward the end of the previous summer, when the Colonel was contemplating a journey, he had read that none might leave the city without a pass, whereupon he went hurriedly to the office of the Provost Marshal. There he had found a number of gentlemen in the same plight, each waving a pass made out by

ield?" asked the

" sai

to be a minute-man, e

silver bell rings on the Marshal's desk, the one word: "Spot!" breaks the intense silence, which is one wa

what can I do for you t

l, gen

. "I reckon I'll wait till next week, Captain," sa

e office who would have liked to laugh, but it did not pa

ain oath to be taken by all citizens who did not wish to have guardians appointed over their actions. There were many who swallowed this oath and never felt any ill effects. Mr. Jacob Cluyme was one, and came away feel

He was not precisely a Southern gentleman, and he went to sleep over the "Idylls of the King." But he was admiring, and grateful, and wept when he went off to the boat with the provost's guard, destined for a Northe

g another sufferer the same comfort. The cordon was drawn tighter. One of the mysterious gentlemen who had been seen in the vicinity of Colon

well upon his brilliant powers of conversation, nor to repeat the platitudes which he repeated, for there was no significance in Mr. H

his fortunes had something in it of which she did not suspect him. She had a class contempt for Mr. Hopper as an uneducated Yankee and a person of commercial ideals. But now he was showing virtues,-if virtues they were,-and she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. With his great s

elf. Could it be that there was a motive under all this plotting? He struck her inevitably as the kind who would be content to mine underground to attain an end. The worst she could think of

elled to speak to her

can't like him. But I do think that if he had been as unscrupulous as I thought, he would have deserted you long ago for some

he had smiled at her ov

ood girl, Ji

ia, subject to service in the state, to exterminate the roving bands. Whereupon her Britannic Majesty became extremely popular, -even with some who claimed for a birthplace the Emerald Isle. Hundreds who heretofore had valued but lightly their British citizenship made haste to renew their allegiance;

not wanting to fight fo

could not re

t he fight for t

lady, scornfully. "Mr. Hopper fight?

too," said the

pers-those grimy reminders of a more prosperous time gone by. Often Mr. Carvel would run across one which seemed to bring some incident to his mind

with that dangerous suavity for which he was noted. Twice a seedy man with a gnawed yellow mustache

hin' about him, you

aid the

ok a shuff

said. "I 'low I kin '

sir," said

ike to hear what

el in his natural voic

ance. But he half turned at the door, and

ied, in alarm, "

were waiting to search the store for him. The Colonel read the order, and invited them in with hospitality. He even showed them the way upstairs, and presently Virginia heard the

of them, and Ned and Mammy, spent a rollicking hour in the pasture the freedom of which Dick had known so long, before the old horse was caught and brought back into bondage. After that Virginia took long drives with her father, and coming home, they would sit in the summer house high above the Merimec, listening to the crickets' chi

hts wandering back, as they sometimes did, to another afternoon she had spen

Hopper's done arrived. He's on de porch, ta

than ever, and his coat was a faultless and sober creation of a Franklin Avenue tailor. He carried a cane, which was unheard of. Virginia sat upright, and patt

pleasantly. "Your father had a notion

ent temperament. But it was not precisely ardor that Eliphalet showed. The gir

e not caugh

eve some tension in him.

guess I

?" she asked, looki

all. You're considerabl

n't tell me whe

know. The place mi

ral Halleck made an order that released a man from enrolling on payment of ten dollars. I paid. Then I was drafted into the

a. "If your substitute gets killed, I suppo

nced at the girl in a way that made her vaguely uneasy. She turned from him, back toward the su

inny?"

es

ound a bit?" Virginia started. It was his tone now. Not since that first evening in Loc

anced around it with apparent satisfaction, and put his foot on the moss-grown step. Virginia did a surprisi

ot in here." He drew back, staring in a

most brutally. She had been groping

I ask you not to." With dignit

s funny, now. Womenkind get queer notions, which I cal'la

gratifying her whim. And she was more incensed than

an insult. She strove sti

luff," she said, coldly, "wh

th, which led, after a little, back to the house.

cipitately, "did I ever st

her to laugh. Eliphalet was suddenly transformed again into the common commercia

e marrying kind, Mr. Hopper," sh

itness to his increasing portliness by creasing across from the buttons; his face, fleshy

e rose bushes with his stick. "I don't cal'late to be a sentimental critter. I'm not much o

ful of those ro

ut a cent, Miss Jinny, I made up my mind I'd be a rich man before I left it. If I was to die now, I'd have kept that promise. I'm not thirty-four,

ed chewing-there was a time when I do

" Virginia said, stifling a rebellious tit

t," said Eliphalet,-"dead against it. You wo

t to be put down. "I confe

nasal twang. "Well, as I was saying, I've about got ready to

ncy!" said Virgin

was good people. I set to work right then to make a fortune for you, Miss Jinny. You've just what I need. I'm a plain business man with no frills. You'll do the frills. You're the kind that was raised in the lap of luxury. You'll need a man with a f

rcely listened. But, as he finished, the thatch of the summer house caught her eye. A vision arose of a man beside whom Eliphalet was not worthy to crawl. She thought of Stephen as he had stood that evening in the sunset, and this proposal seemed a degradatio

no passion. This was the moment for which he had lived since the day he had first seen her and been scorned in the store. That type of face, that air,-the

are you!"

s, as though stunned. Then, slowly, a light crept i

-marry me?

g with her hands behind her, her back against a great walnut trunk, the crusted branches of which hun

y. "You must! You've got no

ia, I would not marry you." Suddenly he became very cool. He slipped his h

id; "the wheels have been a-turning lately. You're poor, but I guess you

ve answered,-nor did she even

in' over them papers. A woman wouldn't know. I'll tell you wha

o prolong a physical delight in the excitement and suffering

and ask him if I'm lying. All you've got to do is to say you'll be my wife, and I tear these notes in two. They go over the bluff." (He made

ant. But she did none of

Will you please fol

er,-his shrewdnes

in front of the house. There was the Colonel sitting on the porch. His pipe lay with its scattered ashes on the boards, and his head wa

rue that you have borrow

him now, so that his knees smote together. As well stare into the sun as into the Colonel's face. I

a trot, nor a run, but a sort of sliding amble, such as is executed in nightmares. Singing in his head was the famous example of the eviction of Babcock from the store, -the only time that the Colonel's bullet had gone wide. And down in the small of his back Elip

oughtfully. And Virginia, glancing shyly upward, saw a smile in the crea

e, was capable of such infinite tenderness,-tenderness and sorrow. The Colon

y, di

es

nd you, Jinny-I should

sn

t trees, and a robin's note rose above the bass chorus of the frogs. In the pauses, as she lis

l,-"I reckon we're just

iled throug

a pause, "I must keep my word

not repr

a very little," he cont

yours. It was left you

company in New Yor

cried. "It shall be yours and mine together

ght, his legs slightly apart, his felt hat pushed back, stroking his goatee. But his

while. It isn't right that I should idle here, while the South needs me, Your Uncle

Mexico; he had come home to lay flowers on her grave. She knew that he thought of this; and, too, that his h

But I know that my girl can take care of herself. In case-in case I do not come back, or occasion should arise, find Lige. Let him take you to your Uncle Daniel. He is fond of you, and will be all alone in Ca

nd and held its fingers locked tight in her own. From the ki

o to N' Orleans an'

de country ma s

th the red and yellow of Mamm

s, if I ain't ramshacked

ead's gitt

chosen together in London. Virginia had found a cigar, which she hid until they went down to

gate, and she heard his firm tread die in the du