so too," I said. "I mean, that some people who are not
foolish believe that it might happen."

"Perhaps," said Mr. Thorold. "I never heard anything of it before.
You are from the South yourself, Miss Randolph?" he added, looking at
me.

"I was born there," I said. And a little silence fell between us. I
was thinking. Some impression, got I suppose from my remembrance of
father and mother, Preston, and others whom I had known, forbade me to
dismiss quite so lightly, as too absurd to be true, the rumour I had
heard. Moreover, I trusted Dr. Sandford's sources of information,
living as he did in habits of close social intercourse with men of
influence and position at Washington, both Southern and Northern.

"Mr. Thorold,"--I broke the silence,--"if the South should do such a
thing, what would happen?"

"There would be trouble," he said.

"What sort of trouble?"

"Might be all sorts," said Mr. Thorold, laughing; "it would depend on
how far people's folly would carry them."

"But suppose the Southern States should just do that;--say they would
break off and govern themselves?"

"They would be like a bad boy that has to be made to take medicine."

"How could you _make_ them?" I asked, feeling unreasonably grave about
the question.

"You can see, Miss Randolph, that such a thing could not be permitted.
A government that would let any part of its subjects break away at
their pleasure from its rule, would deserve to go to pieces. If one
part might go, another part might go. There would be no nation left."

"But how could you _help_ it?" I asked.

"I don't know whether we could help it," he said; "but we would try."

"You do not mean that it would come to _fighting_?"

"I do not think they would be such fools. I hope we are supposing a
very unlikely thing, Miss Randolph."

I hoped so. But that impression of Southern character troubled me yet.
Fighting! I looked at the peaceful hills, feeling as if indeed "all
the foundations of the earth" would be "out of course."

"What would _you_ do in case it came to fighting?" said my neighbour.
The words startled me out of my meditations.

"I could not do anything."

"I beg your pardon. Your favour--your countenance, would do much; on
one side or the other. You would fight--in effect--as surely as I
should."

I looked up. "Not against you," I said; for I could not bear to be
misunderstood.

There was a strange sparkle in Mr. Thorold's eye; but those flashes of
ligh