oung man's voice--fallen into a melodious murmur--ceased, she took up
the theme with unexpected earnestness.

"That's the error the South has made from the first. You know my father
was a public man. I have been educated more at our dinner-table and in
his talks with guests than at school. That is, the things that have
taken strongest hold of my mind young girls rarely hear or understand.
Now I think I can tell you something that may be of value to you in
official places where you are going. The North is not only in
earnest--it is religiously in earnest. If you know Puritan history you
know what that means. For example: if Jack had hesitated a moment or
made delay to get rank in the army, I should have abhorred him. So would
our mother, though she seems to be dismayed at his serving as a common
soldier. I adore Jack; I think him the finest, the most perfect nature
after my father's--that lives. But I give him up gladly, because to keep
him would be to degrade him. We know that he may fall; that he may come
back to us a cripple or worse. But, as you see, we make no sign. Not a
line of routine has been changed in the house. Jack will march away and
never see a tear in my eye or feel my pulse tremble. It is not in our
Northern blood to give much expression to sentiment, but we feel none
the less deeply--much more deeply, I think, than you exuberant
Southerners; you are impulsive, mercurial, and fickle."

"Oh, don't say that: I can't bear to hear you say it; we have deep
feelings, we are constant, true as steel, chivalrous--"

"Yes, you are delightful people; but you are always living in the past.
Shall I say it? You are womanlike; you can't reason. What you want at
the moment is right, and only that; with us nothing is real until we
have tried and proved it. If you count on Northern apathy you will soon
see your mistake. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter the North was of
one mind, and will stay so until all is again as it was."

"Pray don't let us talk on this subject. I'm free to own that it does
not interest me. Then," he added adroitly, "you are readier in argument
than I, because you were brought up in it. But what I want to say is,
that it seems base for me to turn upon the goodness I have met in this
house, and--and--"

"But you need not turn. In battle do your duty like a man. If it should
fall to you to do a kindness to the wounded, do it in memory of the
friends you have here. War is less savage now than it