"Oh, Uncle Jim! Once I saw you pat a big pine and say 'how are you, old
fellow?' I told John it was nonsense, but he said it was fine."

"Oh, but that was a tree."

Leila laughed. "Of that there can be no doubt."

"Well, and what of it? It was half fun. You and John and your aunt sit up
and explode into enthusiasm over verse, when it could all be said far
better in simple prose."

"I should like to put that to the test some night."

"Not I, Miss Grey. I have no poetry in me. I am cold prose through and
through."

"You--you!" she cried. "Some people like poetry--some people are poetry."

"What--what?"

"Wasn't your hero Cromwell just magnificent, stately blank verse?"

"What confounded nonsense!" She glanced at the manly figure with the
cavalry seat, erect, handsome, to her heroic--an ideal gentleman in all
his ways. "Stuff and nonsense!" he added.

"Well, Uncle Jim--to talk prose--the elections please you?"

"Yes. The North is stiffening up. It is as well. Did you see what Seward
said, 'An irrepressible conflict,' and that man Lincoln, 'The house
divided against itself cannot stand'? Now I should like to think them
both wrong."

"And do you not?" she asked.

"No. Some devilish fate seems to be at the helm, as Rivers says. We avoid
one rock to fall into wild breakers of exasperation; with fugitive-slave
cases on one side, and on the other importations of slaves. Where will it
end?"

"But what would you do, uncle?"

"Oh, amend the Fugitive-Slave Law. Try the cases by jury. Let slavery
alone to cure itself, as it would in time. It would if we let it alone."

"And Kansas?" asked Leila.

"Oh, Douglas is right, but his view of the matter will never satisfy the
South nor the extreme men at the North. My dear Leila, the days are dark
and will be darker, and worst of all they really think we are afraid."
His face grew stern. "I hate to talk about it. Have you heard from John
lately?"

"Yes, only last week."

"And you write to him, of course?"

"Yes, I answer his letters. Aunt Ann writes every Sunday. Are things
better at the mills?"

"Rather. Now for a gallop--it puts me always in a more hopeful humour.
Don't let your aunt overwork you, Leila; she will."

"She can't, Uncle Jim." It was true. Leila gently rebelled against
incessant good works--sewing-classes for the village girls, Sunday
school, and the endless errands which left no time for books. Her
occasional walks with Marks Rivers enabled he