y, duller resignation.

The printed news was read day after day by a people who understood
nothing, neither the cautious arming nor the bold disarming, nor
the silent fall of fortified places, nor the swift dismantling of
tall ships--nor did they comprehend the ceaseless tremors of a land
slowly crumbling under the subtle pressure--nor that at last the
vast disintegration of the matrix would disclose the forming
crystal of another nation cradled there, glittering, naming under
the splendour of the Southern skies.

A palsied Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man--he who had
been President--went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its
infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the
White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with
eyes that no man understood.

And now the soft sun of April spun a spell upon the Northland folk;
for they had eyes but they saw not; ears had they, but they heard
not; neither spoke they through the mouth.

To them only one figure seemed real, looming above the vast and
motionless mirage where a continent stood watching the parapets of
a sea-girt fort off Charleston.

But the nation looked too long; the mirage closed in; fort, sea,
the flag itself, became unreal; the lone figure on the parapet
turned to a phantom. God's will was doing. Who dared doubt?

"There seems to be no doubt in the South," observed Ailsa Paige to
her brother-in-law one fragrant evening after dinner where, in the
dusk, the family had gathered on the stoop after the custom of a
simpler era.

Along the dim street long lines of front stoops blossomed with the
light spring gowns of women and young girls, pale, dainty clusters
in the dusk set with darker figures, where sparks from cigars
glowed and waned in the darkness.

Windows were open, here and there a gas jet in a globe flickered
inside a room, but the street was dusky and tranquil as a country
lane, and unilluminated save where at far intervals lamp-posts
stood in a circle of pale light, around which a few moths hovered.

"The rebels," repeated Ailsa, "appear to have no doubts, honest or
otherwise. They've sent seven thousand troops to the Charleston
fortifications--the paper says."

Stephen Craig heard his cousin speak but made no response. He was
smoking openly and in sight of his entire family the cigar which
had, heretofore, been consumed surreptitiously. His mother sat
close to his shoulder, rallying