laughed and shook my head. "Oh, we move fast!"

"Yes, I'm an old man," he admitted sadly, "and I was brought up in a
different civilisation. It's funny, my boy, how many customs were swept
away with the institution of slavery."

"There'd have been little room for me in those days."

"Oh, you'd have got into some places quick enough, but you'd never have
crossed the Blands' threshold when they lived down on James River. There
isn't much of that nonsense left now, but Miss Mitty has got it and
Theophilus has got it; and, when all's said, they, might have something
considerably worse. Why, look at Miss Matoaca. When I first saw her
you'd never have imagined there was an idea inside her head."

"I can understand that she must have been very pretty."

"Pretty? She was as beautiful as an angel. And to think of her
distributing those damned woman's rights pamphlets! She left one on my
desk," he added, sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, and
wiping his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. "I tell
you if she'd had a husband this would never have happened."

"We can't tell--it might have been worse, if she believes it."

"Believes what, sir?" gasped the great man, enraged. "Believes that
outlandish Yankee twaddle about a woman wanting any rights except the
right to a husband! Do you think she'd be running round loose in this
crackbrained way if she had a home she could stay in and a husband she
could slave over? I tell you there's not a woman alive that ain't
happier with a bad husband than with none at all."

"That's a comfortable view, at any rate."

"View? It's not a view, it's a fact--and what business has a lady got
with a view anyway? If Miss Matoaca hadn't got hold of those heathenish
views, she'd be a happy wife and mother this very minute."

"Does it follow, General, that she would have been a happy one?" I asked
a little unfairly.

"Of course it follows. Isn't every wife and mother happy? What more does
she want unless she's a Yankee Abolitionist?"

"Who's a Yankee?" enquired young George, in his amiable voice from the
hall. "I'm surprised to hear you calling names when the war is over,
sir."

"I wasn't calling names, George. I was just saying that Miss Matoaca
Bland was a Yankee. Did you ever hear of a Virginia lady who wasn't
content to be what the Lord and the men intended her?"

"No, sir, I never did--but it seems to me that Miss Matoaca has managed
to secure a greater sha