The Call of the South

many of the restraints which the strict and old-fashioned ideas of her mother had put upon her during her girlhood, and was filled with a lively enjoyment of her first untrammel

rl, it mattered not to her, if her fellow in the hour's sport was quick-witted, quick-moving and mischief-loving. The extent of her thoughts of love was that i

she once asked Mr.

owledge," Rutledg

d curl beautifully if you didn't crop it so close-but you will have to be a hero. You needn't fear Mr. Morgan. He fa

?" asked Rutledge, amused at the

ad a shot fired at him the whole time he was gone. Th

ay have been detailed to such dutie

dy's orders would have kept me from the firing-line-I believe that's what papa calls it-the place where all the fun and danger is. When papa talks about it I can hear my heart beat. Elise says she wouldn't be a man for anything; but I've heard

regiment," said

volunteer?" asked

lunteer"-a tr

he had failed to volunteer I would never have spoken to

," said Rutledge shortly. "Where

would just as well sit down here and talk to me.... But I'm sorry you didn't volu

ct, anyway. It's the hero in act and not in fact, in the making and not in the taking, that enjoys his own heroism and is worth our interest. While he is making himself he thrills with the effort and with the uncertainty as to whether he will get a commission, a lathe-and-plaster arch, or a court of inquiry; and we the ninety and nine, we thrill with the gambling fever and make wagers that his trolley will get off the wire. But when he gets himself done-clean done, so to speak, wrapped in tinfoil and ready for use-then there is nothing left for the hero to do but to pose and await our applause-which is most unheroic; a

ou can't confuse me by any such talk as that. You needn't think you will be able to persuade Elise by

method to become your brother," Rutledge rejoined am

at?" asked Hele

d Rutledge grandiloquently, "but to grant your request would

th an assumption of great indiffe

u," said Rutledge confidently. "And it will be beyond doubt. But you are too you

ecause of the suggestion that she was not free to do as she pleased; and her eyes began to flash at Rutledge's taunt and h

n words to know. He, manlike, thought that he was keeping this knowledge of his supreme affection for her a secret in his own soul, to be delivered as a startling and effective surprise when an impressive and str

t him. She was attracted by everything she saw or knew of him, and looked upon him with that more

g newspaper prophecies concerning her father induced day-dreams of court-like scenes and princely suitors when she should be the young lady of the White House, the most exalted maiden in great America, with the prerogative of a crown princess. A temporary prerogative surely, but well-nigh irresistible when combined with

cere admiration for true manliness and pure womanliness unadorned by any tinsel of arbitrary rank, with all her contempt for the shams and pretences of decayed nobilities parading dishonoured titles, was yet too

d gesture of power that men obeyed and women adored, and that became tender and adoring only for her;-him, with a rank that made him to stand before kings with confidence, and a clean life that might stand before her white soul and feel no shame;-him, with a strength and courage

ave saved himself at least from the pain of a flouted love; and if he could have made his heart obey his

he passions and the sorrows of that awful four years of blood and strife: for every man of her house, father and five brothers, had she seen dead and cold in their uniforms of gray; and her

ntry which her mind comprehended in the term "the North," were "not of our sort,"-that they were intelligent and interesting in a way;-that Elise Phillips was unquestionably fascinating to a young man, that her money had given her a polish of mind and manner that was admittedly a

dices, and was never so rude as to brush them aside contemptuously. He always treated them with deference and tried always to meet them with some show of reason. In the case of Elise Phillips he sought to placate

dge to his mother; "and surely there cannot be much degeneracy in two ge

ithout force, but solemnly warned her son there wa

ut in the blood," she said, "and bad

her most unreasonable whim, but his love for Elise was too fervid a passion to be stifled for the sake of a war-born pr