me for dinner," said Virginia, "if you really wish
to catch the train."

The coldness in her voice, rather than her words, aroused him. He rose,
took one lingering look at the river, and followed her to the house.

At dinner, when not talking about his mare, the Colonel was trying
to persuade Stephen to remain. Virginia did not join in this, and
her father thought the young man's refusal sprang from her lack of
cordiality. Colonel Carvel himself drove to the station.

When he returned, he found his daughter sitting idly on the porch.

"I like that young man, if he is a Yankee," he declared.

"I don't," said Virginia, promptly.

"My dear," said her father, voicing the hospitality of the Carvels,
"I am surprised at you. One should never show one's feelings toward a
guest. As mistress of this house it was your duty to press him to stay."

"He did not want to stay."

"Do you know why he went, my dear," asked the Colonel.

"No," said Virginia.

"I asked him," said the Colonel.

"Pa! I did not think it of you!" she cried. And then, "What was it?" she
demanded.

"He said that his mother was alone in town, and needed him."

Virginia got up without a word, and went into Judge Whipple's room.
And there the Colonel found her some hours later, reading aloud from a
scrap-book certain speeches of Mr. Lincoln's which Judge Whipple had cut
from newspapers. And the Judge, lying back with his eyes half closed,
was listening in pure delight. Little did he guess at Virginia's
penance!

Volume 4.

CHAPTER VII. AN EXCURSION

I am going ahead two years. Two years during which a nation struggled
in agony with sickness, and even the great strength with which she was
endowed at birth was not equal to the task of throwing it off. In 1620
a Dutch ship had brought from Guinea to his Majesty's Colony of Virginia
the germs of that disease for which the Nation's blood was to be let
so freely. During these years signs of dissolution, of death, were not
wanting.

In the city by the Father of Waters where the races met, men and women
were born into the world, who were to die in ancient Cuba, who were to
be left fatherless in the struggle soon to come, who were to live to
see new monsters rise to gnaw at the vitals of the Republic, and to
hear again the cynical laugh of Europe. But they were also to see their
country a power in the world, perchance the greatest power. While Europe
had wrangled, the child of the West had g