man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,"
she recited, laughing. She crossed over and sat beside him, and her tone
changed. "Max, can't you understand? It isn't that. Max, if you would
only work at something. That is why the Yankees beat us. If you would
learn to weld iron, or to build bridges, or railroads. Or if you would
learn business, and go to work in Pa's store."

"You do not care for me as I am?"

"I knew that you did not understand," she answered passionately. "It is
because I care for you that I wish to make you great. You care too much
for a good time, for horses, Max. You love the South, but you think too
little how she is to be saved. If war is to come, we shall want men like
that Captain Robert Lee who was here. A man who can turn the forces of
the earth to his own purposes."

For a moment Clarence was moodily silent.

"I have always intended to go into politics, after Pa's example," he said
at length.

"Then--" began Virginia, and paused.

"Then--?" he said.

"Then--you must study law."

He gave her the one keen look. And she met it, with her lips tightly
pressed together. Then he smiled.

"Virginia, you will never forgive that Yankee, Brice."

"I shall never forgive any Yankee," she retorted quickly. "But we are not
talking about him. I am thinking of the South, and of you."

He stooped toward her face, but she avoided him and went back to the
bench.

"Why not?" he said.

"You must prove first that you are a man," she said.

For years he remembered the scene. The vineyard, the yellow stubble; and
the river rushing on and on with tranquil power, and the slow panting of
the steamboat. A doe ran out of the forest, and paused, her head raised,
not twenty feet away.

"And then you will marry me, Jinny?" he asked finally.

"Before you may hope to control another, we shall see whether you can
control yourself, sir."

"But it has all been arranged," he exclaimed, "since we played here
together years ago!"

"No one shall arrange that for me," replied Virginia promptly. "And I
should think that you would wish to have some of the credit for
yourself."

"Jinny!"

Again she avoided him by leaping the low railing. The doe fled into the
forest, whistling fearfully. Virginia waved her hand to him and started
toward the house. At the corner of the porch she ran into her aunt Mrs.
Colfax was a beautiful woman. Beautiful when Addison Colfax married her
in Kentucky at nineteen, bea