ery gentlemanly occupation. That's what they do in
Virginia."

"Yes," said Virginia, scornfully, "we're all gentlemen in the South. What
do we know about business and developing the resources of the country?
Not THAT."

"You make my head ache, my dear," was her aunt's reply. "Where did you
get all this?"

"You ask me because I am a girl," said Virginia. "You believe that women
were made to look at, and to play with,--not to think. But if we are
going to get ahead of the Yankees, we shall have to think. It was all
very well to be a gentleman in the days of my great-grandfather. But now
we have railroads and steamboats. And who builds them? The Yankees. We of
the South think of our ancestors, and drift deeper and deeper into debt.
We know how to fight, and we know how to command. But we have been ruined
by--" here she glanced at the retreating form of Alfred, and lowered her
voice, "by niggers."

Mrs. Colfax's gaze rested languidly on her niece's faces which glowed
with indignation.

"You get this terrible habit of argument from Comyn," she said. "He ought
to send you to boarding-school. How mean of Mr. Vance not to come! You've
been talking with that old reprobate Whipple. Why does Comyn put up with
him?"

"He isn't an old reprobate," said Virginia, warmly.

"You really ought to go to school," said her aunt. "Don't be eccentric.
It isn't fashionable. I suppose you wish Clarence to go into a factory."

"If I were a man," said Virginia, "and going into a factory would teach
me how to make a locomotive or a cotton press, or to build a bridge, I
should go into a factory. We shall never beat the Yankees until we meet
them on their own ground."

"There is Mr. Vance now," said Mrs. Colfax, and added fervently, "Thank
the Lord!"

CHAPTER IX

A QUIET SUNDAY IN LOCUST STREET

IF the truth were known where Virginia got the opinions which she
expressed so freely to her aunt and cousin, it was from Colonel Carvel
himself. The Colonel would rather have denounced the Dred Scott decision
than admit to Judge Whipple that one of the greatest weaknesses of the
South lay in her lack of mechanical and manufacturing ability. But he had
confessed as much in private to Captain Elijah Brent. The Colonel would
often sit for an hour or more, after supper, with his feet tucked up on
the mantel and his hat on the back of his head, buried in thought. Then
he would saunter slowly down to the Planters' House bar, which served the