inued their
mother, "and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I
said, 'Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged
myse'f fo' times befo' I was fo'teen----'"

Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there
dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful
soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental
matters in the family circle--letting in fresh air and sunshine on
what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen.

"It's perfectly absurd," observed Ailsa, "at your age, Paige----"

"Mother was married at sixteen! Weren't you, dearest?"

"I certainly was; but _I_ am a bad rebel and _you_ are good little
Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they're twenty odd befo'
they do anything ve'y ridiculous."

"We expect to wait," said Paige, with a dignified glance at her
sister.

"You've four years to wait, then," laughed Marye.

"What's the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?"

"And you've three years to wait, silly," retorted Paige. "But I
don't care; I'd rather wait. It isn't very long, now. Ailsa, why
don't you marry again?"

Ailsa's lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under
the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been
sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in
appreciative recitation of what she was reading.

"Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night
To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!"
"Listen, Celia," she said, "this is really beautiful:

A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig's cheeks, but she said
nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of
Timrod's "Ethnogenesis":

"Now come what may, whose favour need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?"

She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:

"And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since, in the limits of the North,
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God--
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage
Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,
And with a hos