ens."

"Even if what happens should be war?"

"Most of all if it should be war. Then I shall be one of those who will
be needed most."

"A right and proper spirit," said Mr. Jamison, of Barnwell. "When we
can command such enthusiasm we are unconquerable. Now, we'll not keep
you longer, Mr. Kenton. This is Christmas Day, and one as young as you
are is entitled to a share of the hilarity. Look after him, St. Clair."

Harry went out with young St. Clair, whom he was now calling by his
first name, Arthur. He, too, was staying with Madame Delaunay, who was
a distant relative.

Harry ate Christmas dinner that evening with twenty people, many of
types new to him. It made a deep impression upon him then, and one yet
greater afterward, because he beheld the spirit of the Old South in its
inmost shrine, Charleston. It seemed to him in later days that he had
looked upon it as it passed.

They sat in a great dining-room upon a floor level with the ground.
The magnolias and live oaks and the shrubs in the garden moved in the
gentle wind. Fresh crisp air came through the windows, opened partly,
and brought with it, as Harry thought, an aroma of flowers blooming in
the farther south. He sat with young St. Clair--the two were already
old friends--and Madame Delaunay was at the head of the table, looking
more like a great lady who was entertaining her friends than the keeper
of an inn.

Madame Delaunay wore a flowing white dress that draped itself in folds,
and a lace scarf was thrown about her shoulders. Her heavy hair,
intensely black, was bound with a gold fillet, after a fashion that
has returned a half century later. A single diamond sparkled upon her
finger. She seemed to Harry foreign, handsome, and very distinguished.

About half the people in the room were of French blood, most of whom
Harry surmised were descendants of people who had fled from Hayti or
Santo Domingo. One, Hector St. Hilaire, almost sixty, but a major in
the militia of South Carolina, soon proved that the boy's surmise was
right. Lemonade and a mild drink called claret-sanger was served to
the boys, but the real claret was served to the major, as to the other
elders, and the mellowness of Christmas pervaded his spirit. He drank a
toast to Madame Delaunay, and the others drank it with him, standing.
Madame Delaunay responded prettily, and, in a few words, she asked
protection and good fortune for this South Carolina which they all loved,