dignation.

"You get this terrible habit of argument from Comyn," she said. "He
ought to send you to boarding-school. How mean of Mr. Vance not to come!
You've been talking with that old reprobate Whipple. Why does Comyn put
up with him?"

"He isn't an old reprobate," said Virginia, warmly.

"You really ought to go to school," said her aunt. "Don't be eccentric.
It isn't fashionable. I suppose you wish Clarence to go into a factory."

"If I were a man," said Virginia, "and going into a factory would teach
me how to make a locomotive or a cotton press, or to build a bridge, I
should go into a factory. We shall never beat the Yankees until we meet
them on their own ground."

"There is Mr. Vance now," said Mrs. Colfax, and added fervently, "Thank
the Lord!"

CHAPTER IX. A QUIET SUNDAY IN LOCUST STREET

IF the truth were known where Virginia got the opinions which she
expressed so freely to her aunt and cousin, it was from Colonel Carvel
himself. The Colonel would rather have denounced the Dred Scott decision
than admit to Judge Whipple that one of the greatest weaknesses of the
South lay in her lack of mechanical and manufacturing ability. But he
had confessed as much in private to Captain Elijah Brent. The Colonel
would often sit for an hour or more, after supper, with his feet tucked
up on the mantel and his hat on the back of his head, buried in thought.
Then he would saunter slowly down to the Planters' House bar, which
served the purposes of a club in those days, in search of an argument
with other prominent citizens. The Colonel had his own particular chair
in his own particular corner, which was always vacated when he came in
at the door. And then he always had three fingers of the best Bourbon
whiskey, no more and no less, every evening.

He never met his bosom friend and pet antagonist at the Planters'
House bar. Judge Whipple, indeed, took his meals upstairs, but he never
descended,--it was generally supposed because of the strong slavery
atmosphere there. However, the Judge went periodically to his friend's
for a quiet Sunday dinner (so called in derision by St. Louisans), on
which occasions Virginia sat at the end of the table and endeavored to
pour water on the flames when they flared up too fiercely.

The Sunday following her ride to Bellegarde was the Judge's Sunday,
Certain tastes which she had inherited had hitherto provided her with
pleasurable sensations while these battles were in progre