shown it so
plainly. Once as she met his genial gaze she held her breath at the
marvel that he should grow to love her, and in vain. Was it that beside
his splendid shallows the more luminous depths of Nicholas's nature
still showed supreme? Or was it a question of fate--and of first and
last? Had Dudley come upon her in the red sunset, in the little shanty
beside the road, would she have gone out to him in the mere leaping of
youth and womanhood? Was it the moment, after all, and not the man? Or
was it something more unerring still--more profound--the prophetic call
of individual to individual, despite the specious pleading of the race?
But she put the thought aside and returned casually to Dudley.

His heartiness was a tonic, and her vanity responded to the unaffected
admiration in his eyes; but his chief claim to her regard lay in the
fact that it was the general, and not herself, whom he endeavoured to
propitiate.

"Well, my dear General!" he exclaimed cordially as he threw himself upon
the worn horsehair sofa in what was called the "sitting-room," "I find
your story about the fighting Texans capped by one Major Mason was
telling me last night about the North Carolinians--" He got no farther.

"I've fought side by side with North Carolina regiments, and I tell you,
sir, they're the best fighters God ever made!" cried the general. "Did
you ever hear that story about 'em when I was wounded?"

Dudley shook his head and leaned forward, his hands clasped between his
knees and an expression of flattering absorption on his face.

"I can't recall it now, sir," he delightfully lied.

The general cleared his throat, laid his pipe aside, and drew up his
chair.

"It was in my last battle," he began. "You know I got that ball in my
shoulder and was laid up when Lee surrendered--well, sir, I was propped
up there close by a company of those raw-boned mountaineers from North
Carolina, and they stood as still as the pine wood behind 'em, while
their colonel swore at 'em like mad.

"'Damn you for a troop of babies!' he yelled. 'Ain't you goin' into the
fight? Can't you lick a blamed Yankee?' And, bless your soul! those
scraggy fellows stood stock still and sung out:

"'We ain't mad!'

"Well, sir, they'd no sooner yelled that back than a bullet whizzed
along and took off one of their own men, and, on my oath, the bullet
hadn't ceased singing in my ears before that company charged the enemy
to a man--and whipped 'em, too, s