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and in women." "He does not want war." "No." "Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at all--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for peace, and that war between brothers is horrible." "It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk." They went on in silence for a time, over the
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winter road, through the crystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intense and cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden and sharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered. "If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all the Virginians in the army--Lee and Johnston and
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Stuart, Maury and Thomas and the rest?" "They'll come home." "Resigning their commissions?" "Resigning their commissions." Allan sighed. "That would be a hard thing to have to do." "They'll do it. Wouldn't you?" The teacher from Thunder Run looked from the dim valley and the household lamps up to the marching stars. "Yes. If my State called, I would do
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it." "This is what will happen," said Cleave. "There are times when a man sees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend to evacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforce it. That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reduce the fort. The North will preach a holy war.
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War there will be--whether holy or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnish her quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the Gulf States back into the Union. Well--do you think she will give them?" Allan gave a short laugh. "No!" "That is what will happen. And then--and then a greater State
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than any will be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army will come home." The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willow copses, and clear running streams. In the crystal air the mountain walls seemed near at hand, above shone Orion, icily brilliant. The lawyer from a dim old house in a grove of
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oaks and the school-teacher from Thunder Run went on in silence for a time; then the latter spoke. "Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him at Lauderdale." "Yes. Judith Cary." "That's the beautiful one, isn't it?" "They are all said to be beautiful--the three Greenwood Carys. But--Yes, that is the beautiful one." He began to hum a
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song, and as he did so he lifted his wide soft hat and rode bareheaded. "It's strange to me," said Allan presently, "that any one should be gay to-day." As he spoke he glanced up at the face of the man riding beside him on the great bay. There was yet upon the road a faint after-light--enough light to reveal
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that there were tears on Cleave's cheek. Involuntarily Allan uttered an exclamation. The other, breaking off his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted hand and wiped the moisture away. "Gay!" he repeated. "I'm not gay. What gave you such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a war, I know all about war!" THREE OAKS
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Having left behind him Allan Gold and the road to Thunder Run, Richard Cleave came, a little later, to his own house, old and not large, crowning a grassy slope above a running stream. He left the highway, opened a five-barred gate, and passed between fallow fields to a second gate, opened this and, skirting a knoll upon which were
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set three gigantic oaks, rode up a short and grass-grown drive. It led him to the back of the house, and afar off his dogs began to give him welcome. When he had dismounted before the porch, a negro boy with a lantern took his horse. "Hit's tuhnin' powerful cold, Marse Dick!" "It is that, Jim. Give Dundee his supper
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at once and bring him around again. Down, Bugle! Down, Moira! Down, Baron!" The hall was cold and in semi-darkness, but through the half-opened door of his mother's chamber came a gush of firelight warm and bright. Her voice reached him--"Richard!" He entered. She was sitting in a great old chair by the fire, idle for a wonder, her hands,
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fine and slender, clasped over her knees. The light struck up against her fair, brooding face. "It is late!" she said. "Late and cold! Come to the fire. Ailsy will have supper ready in a minute." He came and knelt beside her on the braided rug. "It is always warm in here. Where are the children?" "Down at Tullius's cabin.--Tell
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me all about it. Who spoke?" Cleave drew before the fire the chair that had been his father's, sank into it, and taking the ash stick from the corner, stirred the glowing logs. "Judge Allen's Resolutions were read and carried. Fauquier Cary spoke--many others." "Did not you?" "No. They asked me to, but with so many there was no need.
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People were much moved--" He broke off, sitting stirring the fire. His mother watched the deep hollows with him. Closely resembling as he did his long dead father, the inner tie, strong and fine, was rather between him and the woman who had given him birth. Wedded ere she was seventeen, a mother at eighteen, she sat now beside her
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first-born, still beautiful, and crowned by a lovely life. She had kept her youth, and he had come early to a man's responsibilities. For years now they had walked together, caring for the farm, which was not large, for the handful of servants, for the two younger children, Will and Miriam. The eighteen years between them was cancelled by their
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common interests, his maturity of thought, her quality of the summer time. She broke the silence. "What did Fauquier Cary say?" "He spoke strongly for patience, moderation, peace--I am going to Lauderdale after supper." "To see Judith?" "No. To talk to Fauquier.... Maury Stafford is at Silver Hill." He straightened himself, put down the ash stick, and rose to his
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feet. "The bell will ring directly. I'll go upstairs for a moment." Margaret Cleave put out a detaining hand. "One moment--Richard, are you quite, quite sure that she likes Maury Stafford so well?" "Why should she not like him? He's a likable fellow." "So are many people. So are you." Cleave gave a short and wintry laugh. "I? I am
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only her cousin--rather a dull cousin, too, who does nothing much in the law, and is not even a very good farmer! Am I sure? Yes, I am sure enough!" His hand closed on the back of her chair; the wood shook under the sombre energy of his grasp. "Did I not see how it was last summer that week
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I spent at Greenwood? Was he not always with her?--supple and keen, easy and strong, with his face like a picture, with all the advantages I did not have--education, travel, wealth!--Why, Edward told me--and could I not see for myself? It was in the air of the place--not a servant but knew he had come a-wooing!" "But there was no
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engagement then. Had there been we should have known it." "No engagement then, perhaps, but certainly no discouragement! He was there again in the autumn. He was with her to-day." The chair shook again. "And this morning Fauquier Cary, talking to me, laughed and said that Albemarle had set their wedding day!" His mother sighed. "Oh, I am sorry--sorry!" "I
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should never have gone to Greenwood last summer--never have spent there that unhappy week! Before that it was just a fancy--and then I must go and let it bite into heart and brain and life--" He dropped his hand abruptly and turned to the door. "Well, I've got to try now to think only of the country! God knows, things
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have come to that pass that her sons should think only of her! It is winter time, Mother; the birds aren't mating now--save those two--save those two!" Upstairs, in his bare, high-ceiled room, his hasty toilet made, he stood upon the hearth, beside the leaping fire, and looked about him. Of late--since the summer--everything was clarifying. There was at work
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some great solvent making into naught the dross of custom and habitude. The glass had turned; outlines were clearer than they had been, the light was strong, and striking from a changed angle. To-day both the sight of a face and the thought of an endangered State had worked to make the light intenser. His old, familiar room looked strange
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to him to-night. A tall bookcase faced him. He went across and stood before it, staring through the diamond panes at the backs of the books. Here were his Coke and Blackstone, Vattel, Henning, Kent, and Tucker, and here were other books of which he was fonder than of those, and here were a few volumes of the poets. Of
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them all, only the poets managed to keep to-night a familiar look. He took out a volume, old, tawny-backed, gold-lettered, and opened it at random-- Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not, But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew, Cleare as the sky, withouten blame or blot-- A bell rang below. Youthful and gay, shattering the quiet of
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the house, a burst of voices proclaimed "the children's" return from Tullius's cabin. When, in another moment, Cleave came downstairs, it was to find them both in wait at the foot, illumined by the light from the dining-room door. Miriam laid hold of him. "Richard, Richard! tell me quick! Which was the greatest, Achilles or Hector?" Will, slight and fair,
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home for the holidays from Lexington and, by virtue of his cadetship in the Virginia Military Institute, an authority on most things, had a movement of impatience. "Girls are so stupid! Tell her it was Hector, and let's go to supper! She'll believe you." Within the dining-room, at the round table, before the few pieces of tall, beaded silver and
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the gilt-banded china, while Mehalah the waitress brought the cakes from the kitchen and the fire burned softly on the hearth below the Saint Memin of a general and law-giver, talk fell at once upon the event of the day, the meeting that had passed the Botetourt Resolutions. Miriam, with her wide, sensitive mouth, her tip-tilted nose, her hazel eyes,
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her air of some quaint, bright garden flower swaying on its stem, was for war and music, and both her brothers to become generals. "Or Richard can be the general, and you be a cavalryman like Cousin Fauquier! Richard can fight like Napoleon and you may fight like Ney!" The cadet stiffened. "Thank you for nothing, Missy! Anyhow, I shan't
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sulk in my tents like your precious Achilles--just for a girl! Richard! 'Old Jack' says--" "I wish, Will," murmured his mother, "that you'd say 'Major Jackson.'" The boy laughed. "'Old Jack' is what we call him, ma'am! The other wouldn't be respectful. He's never 'Major Jackson' except when he's trying to teach natural philosophy. On the drill ground he's 'Old
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Jack.' Richard, he says--Old Jack says--that not a man since Napoleon has understood the use of cavalry." Cleave, sitting with his eyes upon the portrait of his grandfather, answered dreamily: "Old Jack is probably in the right of it, Will. Cavalry is a great arm, but I shall choose the artillery." His mother set down her coffee cup with a
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little noise, Miriam shook her hair out of her eyes and came back from her own dream of the story she was reading, and Will turned as sharply as if he were on the parade ground at Lexington. "You don't think, then, that it is just all talk, Richard! You are sure that we're going to fight!" "You fight!" cried
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Miriam. "Why, you aren't sixteen!" Will flared up. "Plenty of soldiers have _died_ at sixteen, Missy! 'Old Jack' knows, if you don't--" "Children, children!" said Margaret Cleave, in a quivering voice. "It is enough to know that not a man of this family but would fight now for Virginia, just as they fought eighty odd years ago! Yes, and we
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women did our part then, and we would do it now! But I pray God, night and day--and Miriam, you should pray too--that this storm will not burst! As for you two who've always been sheltered and fed, who've never had a blow struck you, who've grown like tended plants in a garden--you don't know what war is! It's a
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great and deep Cup of Trembling! It's a scourge that reaches the backs of all! It's universal destruction--and the gift that the world should pray for is to build in peace! That is true, isn't it, Richard?" "Yes, it is true," said Richard. "Don't, Will," as the boy began to speak. "Don't let's talk any more about it to-night. After
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all, a deal of storms go by--and it's a wise man who can read Time's order-book." He rose from the table. "It's like the fable. The King may die, the Ass may die, the Philosopher may die--and next Christmas maybe the peacefullest on record! I'm going to ride to Lauderdale for a little while, and, if you like, I'll ask
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about that shotgun for you." A few minutes later and he was out on the starlit road to Lauderdale. As he rode he thought, not of the Botetourt Resolutions, nor of Fauquier Cary, nor of Allan Gold, nor of the supper table at Three Oaks, nor of a case which he must fight through at the court house three days
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hence, but of Judith Cary. Dundee's hoofs beat it out on the frosty ground. _Judith Cary--Judith Cary--Judith Cary!_ He thought of Greenwood, of the garden there, of a week last summer, of Maury Stafford--Stafford whom at first meeting he had thought most likable! He did not think him so to-night, there at Silver Hill, ready to go to Lauderdale to-morrow!--_Judith
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Cary--Judith Cary--Judith Cary._ He saw Stafford beside her--Stafford beside her--Stafford beside her-- "If she love him," said Cleave, half aloud, "he must be worthy. I will not be so petty nor so bitter! I wish her happiness.--_Judith Cary--Judith Cary._ If she love him--" To the left a little stream brawled through frosty meadows; to the right rose a low hill
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black with cedars. Along the southern horizon stretched the Blue Ridge, a wall of the Titans, a rampart in the night. The line was long and clean; behind it was an effect of light, a steel-like gleaming. Above blazed the winter stars. "If she love him--if she love him--" He determined that to-night at Lauderdale he would try to see
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her alone for a minute. He would find out--he must find out--if there were any doubt he would resolve it. The air was very still and clear. He heard a carriage before him on the road. It was coming toward him--a horseman, too, evidently riding beside it. Just ahead the road crossed a bridge--not a good place for passing in
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the night-time. Cleave drew a little aside, reining in Dundee. With a hollow rumbling the carriage passed the streams. It proved to be an old-fashioned coach with lamps, drawn by strong, slow grey horses. Cleave recognized the Silver Hill equipage. Silver Hill must have been supping with Lauderdale. Immediately he divined who was the horseman. The carriage drew alongside, the
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lamps making a small ring of light. "Good-evening, Mr. Stafford!" said Cleave. The other raised his hat. "Mr. Cleave, is it not? Good-evening, sir!" A voice spoke within the coach. "It's Richard Cleave now! Stop, Ephraim!" The slow grey horses came to a stand. Cleave dismounted, and came, hat in hand, to the coach window. The mistress of Silver Hill,
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a young married woman, frank and sweet, put out a hand. "Good-evening, Mr. Cleave! You are on your way to Lauderdale? My sister and Maury Stafford and I are carrying Judith off to Silver Hill for the night.--She wants to give you a message--" She moved aside and Judith took her place--Judith in fur cap and cloak, her beautiful face
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just lit by the coach lamp. "It's not a message, Richard. I--I did not know that you were coming to Lauderdale to-night. Had I known it, I--Give my love, my dear love, to Cousin Margaret. I would have come to Three Oaks, only--" "You are going home to-morrow?" "Yes. Fauquier wishes to get back to Albemarle--" "Will you start from
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Lauderdale?" "No, from Silver Hill. He will come by for me. But had I known," said Judith clearly, "had I known that you would ride to Lauderdale to-night--" "You would dutifully have stayed to see a cousin," thought Cleave in savage pain. He spoke quietly, in the controlled but vibrant voice he had used on the hilltop. "I am sorry
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that I will not see you to-night. I will ride on, however, and talk to Fauquier. You will give my love, will you not, to all my cousins at Greenwood? I do not forget how good all were to me last summer!--Good-bye, Judith." She gave him her hand. It trembled a little in her glove. "Come again to Greenwood! Winter
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or summer, it will be glad to see you!--Good-bye, Richard." Fur cap, cloak, beautiful face, drew back. "Go on, Ephraim!" said the mistress of Silver Hill. The slow grey horses put themselves into motion, the coach passed on. Maury Stafford waited until Cleave had remounted. "It has been an exciting day!" he said. "I think that we are at the
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parting of the ways." "I think so. You will be at Silver Hill throughout the week?" "No, I think that I, too, will ride toward Albemarle to-morrow. It is worth something to be with Fauquier Cary a little longer." "That is quite true," said Cleave slowly. "I do not ride to Albemarle to-morrow, and so I will pursue my road
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to Lauderdale and make the most of him to-night!" He turned his horse, lifted his hat. Stafford did likewise. They parted, and Cleave presently heard the rapid hoofbeat overtake the Silver Hill coach and at once change to a slower rhythm. "Now _he_ is speaking with her through the window!" The sound of wheel and hoof died away. Cleave shook
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Dundee's reins and went on toward Lauderdale. _Judith Cary--Judith Cary--There are other things in life than love--other things than love--other things than love.... Judith Cary--Judith Cary...._ At Three Oaks Margaret Cleave rested upon her couch by the fire. Miriam was curled on the rug with a book, an apple, and Tabitha the cat. Will mended a skate-strap and discoursed of
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"Old Jack." "It's a fact, ma'am! Wilson worked the problem, gave the solution, and got from Old Jack a regular withering up! They'll all tell you, ma'am, that he excels in withering up! 'You are wrong, Mr. Wilson,' says he, in that tone of his--dry as tinder, and makes you stop like a musket-shot! 'You are always wrong. Go to
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your seat, sir.' Well, old Wilson went, of course, and sat there so angry he was shivering. You see he was right, and he knew it. Well, the day went on about as usual. It set in to snow, and by night there was what a western man we've got calls a 'blizzard.' Barracks like an ice house, and snowing
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so you couldn't see across the Campus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that we rather looked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to the Commandant's office!'--Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he hadn't done anything; but off he marches, the rest of us predicting hanging. Well, whom d' ye reckon he found
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in the Commandant's office?" "Old Jack?" "Good marksmanship! It was Old Jack--snow all over, snow on his coat, on his big boots, on his beard, on his cap. He lives most a mile from the Institute, and the weather was bad, sure enough! Well, old Wilson didn't know what to expect--most likely hot shot, grape and canister with musketry fire
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thrown in--but he saluted and stood fast. 'Mr. Wilson,' says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with closed eyes after supper as is my custom the day's work, I discovered that you were right this morning and I was wrong. Your solution was correct. I felt it to be your due that I should tell you of my
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mistake as soon as I discovered it. I apologise for the statement that you were always wrong. You may go, sir.' Well, old Wilson never could tell what he said, but anyhow he accepted the apology, and saluted, and got out of the room somehow and back to barracks, and we breathed on the window and made a place through
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which we watched Old Jack over the Campus, ploughing back to Mrs. Jack through the blizzard! So you see, ma'am, things like that make us lenient to Old Jack sometimes--though he is awfully dull and has very peculiar notions." Margaret Cleave sat up. "Is that you, Richard?" Miriam put down Tabitha and rose to her knees. "Did you see Cousin
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Judith? Is she as beautiful as ever?" Will hospitably gave up the big chair. "You must have galloped Dundee both ways! Did you ask about the shotgun?" Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. "Yes, Will, you may have it.--Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam. They leave for Greenwood to-morrow." "And Cousin
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Judith," persisted Miriam. "What did she have on? Did she sing to you?" Cleave picked up her fallen book and smoothed the leaves. "She was not there. The Silver Hill people had taken her for the night. I passed them on the road.... There'll be thick ice, Will, if this weather lasts." Later, when good-night had been said and he
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was alone in his bare, high-ceiled room, he looked, not at his law books nor at the poet's words, left lying on the table, but he drew a chair before the fireplace, and from its depths he raised his eyes to his grandfather's sword slung above the mantel-shelf. He sat there, long, with the sword before him; then he rose,
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took a book from the case, trimmed the candles, and for an hour read of the campaigns of Fabius and Hannibal. GREENWOOD The April sunshine, streaming in at the long windows, filled the Greenwood drawing-room with dreamy gold. It lit the ancient wall-paper where the shepherds and shepherdesses wooed between garlands of roses, and it aided the tone of time
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among the portraits. The boughs of peach and cherry blossoms in the old potpourri jars made it welcome, and the dark, waxed floor let it lie in faded pools. Miss Lucy Cary was glad to see it as she sat by the fire knitting fine white wool into a sacque for a baby. There was a fire of hickory, but
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it burned low, as though it knew the winter was over. The knitter's needles glinted in the sunshine. She was forty-eight and unmarried, and it was her delight to make beautiful, soft little sacques and shoes and coverlets for every actual or prospective baby in all the wide circle of her kindred and friends. A tap at the door, and
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the old Greenwood butler entered with the mail-bag. Miss Lucy, laying down her knitting, took it from him with eager fingers. _Place a la poste_--in eighteen hundred and sixty-one! She untied the string, emptied letters and papers upon the table beside her, and began to sort them. Julius, a spare and venerable piece of grey-headed ebony, an autocrat of exquisite
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manners and great family pride, stood back a little and waited for directions. Miss Lucy, taking up one after another the contents of the bag, made her comments half aloud. "Newspapers, newspapers! Nothing but the twelfth and Fort Sumter! _The Whig._--'South Carolina is too hot-headed!--but when all's said, the North remains the aggressor.' _The Examiner._--'Seward's promises are not worth the
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paper they are written upon.' '_Faith as to Sumter fully kept--wait and see._' That which was seen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-five guns and twenty-four hundred men--'_carrying provisions to a starving garrison!_' Have done with cant, and welcome open war! _The Enquirer._--'Virginia will still succeed in mediating. Virginia from her curule chair, tranquil and
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fast in the Union, will persuade, will reconcile these differences!' Amen to that!" said Miss Lucy, and took up another bundle. "_The Staunton Gazette_--_The Farmer's Magazine_--_The Literary Messenger_--My _Blackwood_--Julius!" "Yaas, Miss Lucy." "Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and to spend the night. Let Car'line know." "Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me
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dat Marse Edward am conducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky." "Very well," said Miss Lucy, still sorting. "_The Winchester Times_--_The Baltimore Sun._--The mint's best, Julius, in the lower bed. I walked by there this morning.--Letters for my brother! I'll readdress these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for the Richmond train." "Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim
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hab imported dat Marse Berkeley Cyarter done recompense him on de road dis mahnin' ter know when Marster's comin' home." "Just as soon," said Miss Lucy, "as the Convention brings everybody to their senses.--Three letters for Edward--one in young Beaufort Porcher's writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston version--probably he fired the first shot!--A note for me.--Julius, the Palo Alto ladies
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will stop by for dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line." "Yaas, Miss Lucy." Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. "From Fauquier at last--from the Red River." She opened the letter, ran rapidly over the half-dozen sheets, then laid them aside for a more leisurely perusal. "It's one of his swift, light, amusing letters! He hasn't heard about Sumter.--There'll be a
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message for you, Julius. There always is." Julius's smile was as bland as sunshine. "Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spects dar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour Old Marster in dat.--He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better come home--all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowder over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk
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git reckless!" Miss Lucy sighed. "It will that, Julius,--it's burning now. Edward from Sally Hampton. More Charleston news!--One for Molly, three for Unity, five for Judith--" "Miss Judith jes' sont er 'lumination by one of de chillern at de gate. She an' Marse Maury Stafford'll be back by five. Dey ain' gwine ride furder'n Monticello." "Very well. Mr. Stafford will
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be here to supper, then. Hairston Breckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line." Miss Lucy readdressed the letters for her brother, a year older than herself, and the master of Greenwood, a strong Whig influence in his section of the State, and now in Richmond, in the Convention there, speaking earnestly for amity, a better understanding between Sovereign States, and a
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happily restored Union. His wife, upon whom he had lavished an intense and chivalric devotion, was long dead, and for years his sister had taken the head of his table and cared like a mother for his children. She sat now, at work, beneath the portrait of her own mother. As good as gold, as true as steel, warm-hearted and
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large-natured, active, capable, and of a sunny humour, she kept her place in the hearts of all who knew her. Not a great beauty as had been her mother, she was yet a handsome woman, clear brunette with bright, dark eyes and a most likable mouth. Miss Lucy never undertook to explain why she had not married, but her brothers
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thought they knew. She finished the letters and gave them to Julius. "Let Easter's Jim take them right away, in time for the evening train.--Have you seen Miss Unity?" "Yaas, ma'am. Miss Unity am in de flower gyarden wid Marse Hairston Breckinridge. Dey're training roses." "Where is Miss Molly?" "Miss Molly am in er reverence over er big n de
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library." The youngest Miss Cary's voice floated in from the hall. "No, I'm not, Uncle Julius. Open the door wider, please!" Julius obeyed, and she entered the drawing-room with a great atlas outspread upon her arms. "Aunt Lucy, where _are_ all these places? I can't find them. The Island and Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and the
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rest of them! I wish when bombardments and surrenders and exciting things happen they'd happen nearer home!" "Child, child!" cried Miss Lucy, "don't you ever say such a thing as that again! The way you young people talk is enough to bring down a judgment upon us! It's like Sir Walter crying 'Bonny bonny!' to the jagged lightnings. You are
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eighty years away from a great war, and you don't know what you are talking about, and may you never be any nearer!--Yes, Julius, that's all. Tell Easter's Jim to go right away.--Now, Molly, this is the island, and here is Fort Moultrie and here Fort Sumter. I used to know Charleston, when I was a girl. I can see
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now the Battery, and the blue sky, and the roses,--and the roses." She took up her knitting and made a few stitches mechanically, then laid it down and applied herself to Fauquier Cary's letter. Molly, ensconced in a window, was already busy with her own. Presently she spoke. "Miriam Cleave says that Will passed his examination higher than any one."
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"That is good!" said Miss Lucy. "They all have fine minds--the Cleaves. What else does she say?" "She says that Richard has given her a silk dress for her birthday, and she's going to have it made with angel sleeves, and wear a hoop with it. She's sixteen--just like me." "Richard's a good brother." "She says that Richard has gone
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to Richmond--something about arms for his Company of Volunteers. Aunt Lucy--" "Yes, dear." "I think that Richard loves Judith." "Molly, Molly, stop romancing!" "I am not romancing. I don't believe in it. That week last summer he used to watch her and Mr. Stafford--and there was a look in his eyes like the knight's in the 'Arcadia'--" "Molly! Molly!" "And
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everybody knew that Mr. Stafford was a suitor. _I_ knew it--Easter told me. And everybody thought that Judith was going to make him happy, only she doesn't seem to have done so--at least, not yet. And there was the big tournament, and Richard and Dundee took all the rings, though I know that Mr. Stafford had expected to, and Judith
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let Richard crown her queen, but she looked just as pale and still! and Richard had a line between his brows, and I think he thought she would rather have had the Maid of Honour's crown that Mr. Stafford won and gave to just a little girl--" "Molly, I am going to lock up every poetry n the house--" "And
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that was one day, and the next morning Richard looked stern and fine, and rode away. He isn't really handsome--not like Edward, that is--only he has a way of looking so. And Judith--" "Molly, you're uncanny--" "I'm not uncanny. I can't help seeing. And the night after the tournament I slept in Judith's room, and I woke up three times,
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and each time there was Judith still sitting in the window, in the moonlight, and the roses Richard had crowned her with beside her in grandmother's Lowestoft bowl. And each time I asked her, 'Why don't you come to bed, Judith?' and each time she said, 'I'm not sleepy.' Then in the morning Richard rode away, and the next day
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was Sunday, and Judith went to church both morning and evening, and that night she took so long to say her prayers she must have been praying for the whole world--" Miss Lucy rose with energy. "Stop, Molly! I shouldn't have let you ever begin. It's not kind to watch people like that." "I wasn't watching Judith," said Molly. "I'd
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scorn to do such a thing! I was just seeing. And I never said a word about her and Richard until this instant when the sunshine came in somehow and started it. And I don't know that she likes Richard any more. I think she's trying hard to like Mr. Stafford--he wants her to so much!" "Stop talking, honey, and
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don't have so many fancies, and don't read so much poetry!--Who is it coming up the drive?" "It's Mr. Wood on his old grey horse--like a nice, quiet knight out of the 'Faery Queen.' Didn't you ever notice, Aunt Lucy, how everybody really belongs in a book?" On the old, broad, pillared porch the two found the second Miss Cary
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and young Hairston Breckinridge. Apparently in training the roses they had discovered a thorn. They sat in silence--at opposite sides of the steps--nursing the recollection. Breckinridge regarded the toe of his boot, Unity the distant Blue Ridge, until, Mr. Corbin Wood and his grey horse coming into view between the oaks, they regarded him. "The air," said Miss Lucy, from
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the doorway, "is turning cold. What did you fall out about?" "South Carolina," answered Unity, with serenity. "It's not unlikely that our grandchildren will be falling out about South Carolina. Mr. Breckinridge is a Democrat and a fire-eater. Anyhow, Virginia is not going to secede just because he wants her to!" The angry young disciple of Calhoun opposite was moved
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to reply, but at that moment Mr. Corbin Wood arriving before the steps, he must perforce run down to greet him and help him dismount. A negro had hardly taken the grey, and Mr. Wood was yet speaking to the ladies upon the porch, when two other horsemen appeared, mounted on much more fiery steeds, and coming at a gait
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that approached the ancient "planter's pace." "Edward and Hilary Preston," said Miss Lucy, "and away down the road, I see Judith and Mr. Stafford." The two in advance riding up the drive beneath the mighty oaks and dismounting, the gravel space before the white-pillared porch became a scene of animation, with beautiful, spirited horses, leaping dogs, negro servants, and gay
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horsemen. Edward Cary sprang up the steps. "Aunt Lucy, you remember Hilary Preston!--and this is my sister Unity, Preston,--the Quakeress we call her! and this is Molly, the little one!--Mr. Wood, I am very glad to see you, sir! Aunt Lucy! Virginia Page, the two Masons, and Nancy Carter are coming over after supper with Cousin William, and I fancy
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that Peyton and Dabney and Rives and Lee will arrive about the same time. We might have a little dance, eh? Here's Stafford with Judith, now!" In the Greenwood drawing-room, after candle-light, they had the little dance. Negro fiddlers, two of them, born musicians, came from the quarter. They were dressed in an elaborate best, they were as suavely happy
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as tropical children, and beamingly eager for the credit in the dance, as in all things else, of "de fambly." Down came the bow upon the strings, out upon the April night floated "Money Musk!" All the furniture was pushed aside, the polished floor gave back the lights. From the walls men and women of the past smiled upon a
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stage they no longer trod, and between garlands of roses the shepherds and shepherdesses pursued their long, long courtship. The night was mild, the windows partly open, the young girls dancing in gowns of summery stuff. Their very wide skirts were printed over with pale flowers, their bodices were cut low, with a fall of lace against the white bosom.
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The hair was worn smooth and drawn over the ear, with on either side a bright cluster of blossoms. The fiddlers played "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." Laughter, quick and gay, or low and ripplingly sweet, flowed through the old room. The dances were all square, for there existed in the country a prejudice against round dancing. Once Edward Cary pushed
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