tile horde profane our sod!"

The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page;
then:

"Nor would we shun the battleground!
. . . The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm,
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Call up the clashing elements around
And test the right and wrong!
On one side creeds that dare to preach
What Christ and Paul refused to teach----"

"Oh!" she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; "Do they believe
such things of us in the South, Celia?"

The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig's cheeks; her lips unclosed,
tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered.
She meditated. Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are
bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain."

"A _nation_!"

"Dear, we have always been that--only the No'th has just found it
out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need
not repeat it."

"But, Celia, the cannon _can't_! The same flag belongs to us both."

"Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird." There came a subtle
ringing sound in Celia Craig's voice; she leaned forward, taking
the newspaper from Ailsa's idle fingers:

"Try to be fair," she said in unsteady tones. "God knows I am not
trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor's
Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street? Would
you care ve'y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle
William? Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the
South." She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down
the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a
hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at
random:

"Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds
A city bides her foe.

"As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud
Where bolted thunders sleep,
Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud
Towers o'er the solemn deep.

"But still along the dim Atlantic's line
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine
From some frail floating oak.

"And still through streets re-echoing with trade
Walk grave and thoughtful men
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.

"And m