you-all weren't a damned foreigner
Ah'd kill you! But Ah suppose you don't know any better, and Ah've got
to let you alone."

He turned and walked to his buggy. He did not forget to pat the noses
of the horse and mule that drew his equipage. He clambered into the
carriage, which protested, creaking, against his weight, and he jogged
slowly out of sight.

"Oh, my Lawd," he whispered to himself, gently rocking from side to
side,--"oh, my Lawd, why ain't he an American? Oh, why ain't he? But a
foreigner! He ain't responsible!"

Friedrich watched the retreating buggy with mingled disgust and
surprise.

"Why did he not r-resent that? If not that, what? He is br-rave, that
is clear; then why does he not fight? Ah, these Americans, I
compr-rehend them not!"

A furnace of indignation, he walked into the house. He passed through
his living-room, where Melissa was scrubbing the floor and singing a
doleful hymn as an encouragement to exertion, and went into his
bedroom. There, in the glass, he suddenly came upon his own face,
filled with bitterness, scowling.

He paused, shocked that this mask of hatred should be his. Abashed, he
turned away from the too truthful mirror of his tell-tale features. A
gurgling sound fell upon his ear, and he saw, lying contentedly upon
his bed, babbling inexplicable nothings, waving meaningless gestures,
rosy, happy, a baby--Melissa's baby.

The soldier looked down upon her solemnly. His face grew less stern and
his whole form seemed to relax.

Glancing guiltily towards the open door of the other room, he leaned
over the bed, and, turning the little head to one side with the tip of
his forefinger, he kissed the baby's cheek just on the rosiest spot.

VI

"I Warrant There's Vinegar and Pepper In't!"

A heavy rain was beating against the windows with intermittent bursts
of fury. Dr. Morgan, sitting in front of the fire in the room in which
Sydney and Bob had had their painful interview on the previous morning,
heard a mandatory whoop from without. Thrusting his stockinged feet
into his slippers, and laying down the _Pickwick Papers_ with a sigh
for the probability of his having to make a visit in such a storm, he
opened the door. A blast of wind brought in a sheet of rain that
dampened the ashes swept from the fireplace by the sudden draught.

"O-oh, Doctor!" came a voice from the rider on the other side of the
fence.

"Hullo! Who are you?"

"Bud Yarebrough. Ah got a letter