his feet. He got the best of her, though, and the first
thing she knew he was on her back. Jove! how she did plunge! but he
mastered her; he sat superbly. I felt Gifford had the making of a man in
him, after that. He inherits his father's pluck. You know Woodhouse made
a record at Lookout Mountain; he was killed the third day."

"Gifford used to say," said Helen, "that he wished he had been born in
time to go into the army."

"There's a good deal of fight in the boy," said the rector, chuckling.
"His aunts were always begging him not to get into rows with the village
boys. I even had to caution him myself. 'Never fight, sir,' I'd say; 'but
if you do fight, whip 'em!' Yes, it's a pity he couldn't have been in the
army."

"Well," said Lois, impatiently, "Giff would have fought, I know, but
he's so contradictory! I've heard him say the Southerners couldn't help
fighting for secession; it was a principle to them, and there was no
moral wrong about it, he said."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried the rector; "these young men, who haven't borne the
burden and heat of the day, pretend to instruct us, do they? No moral
wrong? I thought Gifford had some sense! They were condemned by God and
man."

"But, uncle Archie," Helen said, slowly, "if they thought they were
right, you can't say there was a moral wrong?"

"Oh, come, come," said Dr. Howe, with an indignant splutter, "you don't
understand these things my dear,--you're young yet, Helen. They were
wrong through and through; so don't be absurd." Then turning half
apologetically to John Ward, he added, "You'll have to keep this child's
ideas in order; I'm sure she never heard such sentiments from me. Mr.
Ward will think you haven't been well brought up, Helen. Principle?
Twaddle! their pockets were what they thought of. All this talk of
principle is rubbish."

The rector's face was flushed, and he brought his fist down with emphasis
upon the arm of his chair.

"And yet," said John Ward, lifting his thoughtful dark eyes to Dr. Howe's
handsome face, "I have always sympathized with a mistaken idea of duty,
and I am sure that many Southerners felt they were only doing their duty
in fighting for secession and the perpetuation of slavery."

"I don't agree with you, sir," said Dr. Howe, whose ideas of hospitality
forbade more vigorous speech, but his bushy gray eyebrows were drawn into
a frown.

"I think you are unfair not to admit that," John continued with gentle
persistence, while