d north of the Potomac--Maryland, alone, an
honourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our active
allies not a minute later than April Fool's Day!"

"You are bitter."

"It is the case, is it not?"

"Yes," said Cleave gravely. "And the blockade is daily growing more
effective, and yet before we are closed in a ring of fire we do not get
our cotton out nor our muskets in! Send the cotton to Europe and sell it
and so fill the treasury with honest gold!--not with this delusion of
wealth, these sheafs of Promises to Pay the Government is issuing. Five
million bales of cotton idle in the South! With every nerve strained,
with daring commensurate to the prize, we could get them out--even now!
To-morrow it will be too late. The blockade will be complete, and we
shall rest as isolated as the other side of the moon. Well! Few
countries or men are wise till after the event."

"You are not bitter."

Cleave shook his head. "I do not believe in bitterness. And if the
government is not altogether wise, so are few others. The people are
heroic. We will see what we will see. I had a letter from the Peninsula
the other day. Fauquier Cary is there with his legion. He says that
McClellan will organize and organize and organize again until
springtime. It's what he does best. Then, if only he can be set going,
he will bring into the field an army that is an army. And if he's not
thwarted by his own government he'll try to reach Richmond from the
correct direction--and that's by sea to Old Point and up both banks of
the James. All of which means heavy fighting on the Peninsula. So Cary
thinks, and I dare say he knows his man. They were classmates and served
together in Mexico."

They approached the old colonnaded hotel. Stafford's horse stood at the
rack. A few soldiers were about the place and down the street, in the
warm dusk a band was playing. "You ride up the valley to-night?" said
Cleave. "When you return to Winchester you must let me serve you in any
way I can."

"You are very good. How red the sunsets are! Look at that bough across
the sky!"

"Were you," asked Cleave, "were you in Albemarle this autumn?"

"Yes. For one day in October. The country looked its loveliest. The old
ride through the woods, by the mill--"

"I remember," said Cleave. "My cousins were well?"

"Quite well. Enchanted princesses guarded by the sable Julius. The old
place was all one drift of red and yellow leaves."

They reached the