asked her, 'Why don't you come to bed,
Judith?' and each time she said, 'I'm not sleepy.' Then in the morning
Richard rode away, and the next day was Sunday, and Judith went to
church both morning and evening, and that night she took so long to say
her prayers she must have been praying for the whole world--"

Miss Lucy rose with energy. "Stop, Molly! I shouldn't have let you ever
begin. It's not kind to watch people like that."

"I wasn't watching Judith," said Molly. "I'd scorn to do such a thing! I
was just seeing. And I never said a word about her and Richard until
this instant when the sunshine came in somehow and started it. And I
don't know that she likes Richard any more. I think she's trying hard to
like Mr. Stafford--he wants her to so much!"

"Stop talking, honey, and don't have so many fancies, and don't read so
much poetry!--Who is it coming up the drive?"

"It's Mr. Wood on his old grey horse--like a nice, quiet knight out of
the 'Faery Queen.' Didn't you ever notice, Aunt Lucy, how everybody
really belongs in a book?"

On the old, broad, pillared porch the two found the second Miss Cary and
young Hairston Breckinridge. Apparently in training the roses they had
discovered a thorn. They sat in silence--at opposite sides of the
steps--nursing the recollection. Breckinridge regarded the toe of his
boot, Unity the distant Blue Ridge, until, Mr. Corbin Wood and his grey
horse coming into view between the oaks, they regarded him.

"The air," said Miss Lucy, from the doorway, "is turning cold. What did
you fall out about?"

"South Carolina," answered Unity, with serenity. "It's not unlikely that
our grandchildren will be falling out about South Carolina. Mr.
Breckinridge is a Democrat and a fire-eater. Anyhow, Virginia is not
going to secede just because he wants her to!"

The angry young disciple of Calhoun opposite was moved to reply, but at
that moment Mr. Corbin Wood arriving before the steps, he must perforce
run down to greet him and help him dismount. A negro had hardly taken
the grey, and Mr. Wood was yet speaking to the ladies upon the porch,
when two other horsemen appeared, mounted on much more fiery steeds, and
coming at a gait that approached the ancient "planter's pace." "Edward
and Hilary Preston," said Miss Lucy, "and away down the road, I see
Judith and Mr. Stafford."

The two in advance riding up the drive beneath the mighty oaks and
dismounting, the gravel space before the white-pilla