ooked up from the newspaper, sitting there cross-legged under
the coverlet.

"I hear you, Steve. I don't know what you mean by 'something's got
to be done.' Major Anderson is doing what he can--bless him!"

"That's all right, but the thing isn't going to stop there."

"Stop where?"

"At Sumter. They'll begin firing on Fortress Monroe and
Pensacola--I--how do you know they're not already thinking about
bombarding Washington? Virginia is going out of the Union; the
entire South is out, or going. Yesterday, I didn't suppose there
was any use in trying to get them back again. Father did, but I
didn't. I think it's got to be done, now. And the question is,
Ailsa, whose going to do it?"

But she was fiercely absorbed again in the news, leaning close over
the paper, tumbled dull-gold hair falling around her bare
shoulders, breath coming faster and more irregularly as she read
the incredible story and strove to comprehend its cataclysmic
significance.

"If others are going, I am," repeated her cousin sullenly.

"Going where, Steve?--Oh------"

She dropped the paper and looked up, startled; and he looked back
at her, defiant, without a flicker in those characteristic family
eyes of his, clear as azure, steady to punishment given or
taken--good eyes for a boy to inherit. And he inherited them from
his rebel mother.

"Father can't keep me home if other people go," he said.

"Wait until other people go." She reached out and laid a hand on
his arm.

"Things are happening too fast, Steve, too fast for everybody to
quite understand just yet. Everybody will do what is the thing to
do; the family will do what it ought to. . . . Has your mother
seen this?"

"Yes. Neither she nor father have dared speak about it before
us--" He made a gesture of quick despair, walked to the window and
back.

"It's a terrible thing, Ailsa, to have mother feel as she does."

"How could she feel otherwise?"

"I've done my best to explain to her----"

"O Steve! _You_!--when it's a matter between her soul and God!"

He said, reddening: "It's a matter of common-sense--I don't mean to
insult mother--but--good Lord, a nation is a nation, but a state is
only a state! I--hang it all--what's the use of trying to explain
what is born in one----"

"The contrary was born in your mother, Steve. Don't ever talk to
her this way. And--go out, please, I wish to dress."

He went away, saying over his shoulders: "I only wanted to t