e roses on her lap. Clarence had
picked them only a few hours ago, in the dew at Bellegarde. She saw her
cousin standing disconsolate under the train sheds, just as she had left
him. She pictured him riding out the Bellefontaine Road that afternoon,
alone. Now that the ocean was to be between them, was it love that she
felt for Clarence at last? She glanced at her father. Once or twice she
had suspected him of wishing to separate them. Her Aunt Lillian, indeed,
had said as much, and Virginia had silenced her. But when she had asked
the Colonel to take Clarence to Europe, he had refused. And yet she knew
that he had begged Captain Lige to go.

Virginia had been at home but a week. She had seen the change in
Clarence and exulted. The very first day she had surprised him on the
porch at Bellegarde with "Hardee's tactics". From a boy Clarence had
suddenly become a man with a Purpose,--and that was the Purpose of the
South.

"They have dared to nominate that dirty Lincoln," he said.--"Do you
think that we will submit to nigger equality rule? Never! never!" he
cried. "If they elect him, I will stand and fight them until my legs
are shot from under me, and then I will shoot down the Yankees from the
ground."

Virginia's heart had leaped within her at the words, and into her eyes
had flashed once more the look for which the boy had waited and hoped in
vain. He had the carriage of a soldier, the animation and endurance
of the thoroughbred when roused. He was of the stuff that made the
resistance of the South the marvel of the world. And well we know,
whatever the sound of it, that his speech was not heroics. Nor was it
love for his cousin that inspired it, save in this: he had apotheosized
Virginia. To him she was the inspired goddess of the South--his country.
His admiration and affection had of late been laid upon an altar. Her
ambition for him he felt was likewise the South's ambition for him.

His mother, Virginia's aunt, felt this too, and strove against it with
her feeble might. She never had had power over her son; nor over any
man, save the temporal power of beauty. And to her mortification she
found herself actually in fear of this girl who might have been her
daughter. So in Virginia's presence she became more trivial and petty
than ever. It was her one defence.

It had of course been a foregone conclusion that Clarence should join
Company A. Few young men of family did not. And now he ran to his room
to don for