way," said Sally, coolly. "If a rat comes in your
way you must shoot him. I knew it had got to come. I have heard my
uncle talk enough about that."

"But what will be the end of it?" said another.

"Pooh! It will end like smoke. The Yankees do not like fighting--they
would rather be excused, if you please. Their _forte_ is quite in
another line--out of the way of powder."

I wondered if that was true. I thought of Thorold, and of Major Blunt.
I was troubled; and when I went to see Miss Cardigan, next day, I
found she could give me little comfort.

"I don't know, my dear," she said, "what they may be left to do.
They're just daft, down there; clean daft."

"If they fight, we shall be obliged to fight," I said, not liking to
ask her about Northern courage; and, indeed, she was a Scotswoman, and
what should she know?

"Aye, just that," she replied; "and fighting between the two parts of
one land is just the worst fighting there can be. Pray it may not
come, Daisy; but those people are quite daft."

The next letters from my mother spoke of my coming out to them as soon
as the school year should be over. The country was likely to be
disturbed, she said; and it would not suit with my father's health to
come home just now. As soon as the school year should be over, and Dr.
Sandford could find a proper opportunity for me to make the journey, I
should come.

I was very glad; yet I was not all glad. I wished they had been able
to come to me. I was not, I hardly knew why I was not quite ready to
quit America while these troubles threatened. And as days went on, and
the cloud grew blacker, my feeling of unwillingness increased. The
daily prints were full of fresh instances of the seizure of United
States property, of the secession of New States; then the Secession
Congress met, and elected Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens their
president and vice-president; and rebellion was duly organized.

Jefferson Davis! How the name took me back to the summer parade on the
West Point plain, and my first view of that smooth, sinister,
ill-conditioned face. Now _he_ was heading rebellion. Where would Dr.
Sandford, and Mr. Thorold, and Preston be? How far would the rebels
carry their work? and what opposition would be made to it? Again I
asked Miss Cardigan.

"It's beyond _me_, Daisy," she said. "I suppose it will depend very
much on whether we've got the right man to head us or no; and that
nobody can tell till we try. This m