to us."

He gave a chain of cousins extending on either side from the Kenton
family and the Bertrand family until they joined in the middle. It was
a slender tie of kinship, but it sufficed in the South. As he finished,
Bertrand himself came in, and was introduced formally to his Kentucky
cousin. Harry would have taken him for a Frenchman, and he was, in very
truth, largely of French blood. His black eyes and hair, his swarthy
complexion, gleaming white teeth and quick, volatile manner showed a
descendant of France who had come from the ancient soil by way of Hayti,
and the great negro rebellion to the coast of South Carolina. He seemed
strange and foreign to Harry, and yet he liked him.

"And this is my young cousin, the one who is likely to be so zealous for
our cause," he said, smiling at Harry with flashing black eyes. "You
are a stalwart lad. They grow bigger and stronger here than on our warm
Carolina coast."

"Raymond arrived only three hours ago," said Colonel Kenton in
explanation. "He came directly from Charleston, leaving only three
hours after the resolution in favor of secession was adopted."

"And a rough journey it was," said Bertrand vivaciously. "I was
rattled and shaken by the trains, and I made some of the connections by
horseback over the wild hills. Then it was a long ride through the snow
to your hospitable home here, my good cousin, Colonel Kenton. But I had
minute directions, and no one noticed the stranger who came so quietly
around the town, and then entered your house."

Harry said nothing but watched him intently. Bertrand spoke with a
rapid lightness and grace and an abundance of gesture, to which he was
not used in Kentucky. He ate plentifully, and, although his manners
were delicate, Harry felt to an increasing degree his foreign aspect and
spirit. He did not wonder at it when he learned later that Bertrand,
besides being chiefly of French blood, had also been educated in Paris.

"Was there much enthusiasm in South Carolina when the state seceded,
Raymond?" asked Colonel Kenton.

"I saw the greatest joy and confidence everywhere," he replied, the
color flaming through his olive face. "The whole state is ablaze.
Charleston is the heart and soul of our new alliance. Rhett and Yancey
of Alabama, and the great orators make the souls of men leap. Ah, sir,
if you could only have been in Charleston in the course of recent
months! If you could have heard the speakers! If