at in its heart loves justice and fair play.

I fear, however, that while much of this talk was going on upon the
galleries at Cowles' Farms, I myself was busier with the training of my
pointer than I was with matters of politics. I was not displeased when
my mother came to me presently that afternoon and suggested that we
should all make a visit to Dixiana Farm, to call upon our neighbors, the
Sheratons.

"Mr. Orme says he would like to meet Colonel Sheraton," she explained,
"and thee knows that we have not been to see our neighbors for some time
now. I thought that perhaps Colonel Sheraton might be moved to listen to
me as well as to Mr. Orme, if I should speak of peace--not in argument,
as thee knows, but as his neighbor."

She looked at me a moment, her hand dusting at my coat. "Thee knows the
Sheratons and the Cowles have sometimes been friends and sometimes
enemies--I would rather we were friends. And, Jack, Miss Grace is quite
thy equal--it any may be the equal of my boy. And some day thee must be
thinking, thee knows--"

"I was already thinking, mother," said I gravely; and so, indeed, I was,
though perhaps not quite as she imagined.

At least that is how we happened to ride to the Sheratons that
afternoon, in our greater carriage, my father and Mr. Orme by the side
of my mother, and I alongside on horseback. In some way the visit seemed
to have a formal nature.

Colonel Sheraton met us at his lawn, and as the day was somewhat warm,
asked us to be seated in the chairs beneath the oaks. Here Miss Grace
joined us presently, and Orme was presented to her, as well as to Mrs.
Sheraton, tall, dark, and lace-draped, who also joined us in response to
Colonel Sheraton's request. I could not fail to notice the quick glance
with which Orme took in the face and figure of Grace Sheraton; and,
indeed he had been a critical man who would not have called her fair to
look upon.

The elder members of the party fell to conversing in their
rocking-chairs there on the lawn, and I was selfish enough to withdraw
Miss Grace to the gallery steps, where we sat for a time, laughing and
talking, while I pulled the ears of their hunting dog, and rolled under
foot a puppy or two, which were my friends. I say, none could have
failed to call Grace Sheraton fair. It pleased me better to sit there on
the gallery steps and talk with her than to listen once more to the
arguments over slavery and secession. I could hear Colonel Sheraton's