d,
"for I happen to know that she prides herself upon being what the papers
call a 'skulker.'" He stopped and rose heavily to his feet, for, at this
point, the door was opened by Cupid and the old lady rustled stiffly into
the room.

"I came down to tell you, Mr. Lightfoot, that you really must not allow
yourself to become excited," she explained, when the rector had comfortably
settled her upon the hearth-rug.

"Pish! tush! my dear, there's not a cooler man in Virginia," replied the
Major, frowning; but for the rest of the evening he brooded in troubled
silence in his easy chair.

In February, a week after a convention of the people was called at
Richmond, the old gentleman surrendered to a sharp siege of the gout, and
through the long winter days he sat, red and querulous, before the library
fire, with his bandaged foot upon the ottoman that wore Aunt Emmeline's
wedding dress. From Leicesterburg a stanch Union man had gone to the
convention; and the Major still resented the selection of his neighbours as
bitterly as if it were an affront to aspirations of his own.

"Dick Powell! Pooh! he's another Peyton Ambler," he remarked testily, "and
on my word there're too many of his kind--too many of his kind. What we
lack, sir, is men of spirit."

When his friends came now he shot his angry questions, like bullets, from
the fireside. "Haven't they done anything yet, eh? How much longer do you
reckon that roomful of old women will gabble in Richmond? Why, we might as
well put a flock of sheep to decide upon a measure!"

But the "roomful of old women" would not be hurried, and the Major grew
almost hoarse with scolding. For more than two months, while North and
South barked at each other across her borders, Virginia patiently and
fruitlessly worked for peace; and for more than two months the Major
writhed a prisoner upon the hearth.

With the coming of the spring his health mended, and on an April morning,
when Betty and the Governor drove over for a quiet chat, they found him
limping painfully up and down the drive with the help of a great
gold-knobbed walking-stick.

He greeted them cordially, and limped after them into the library where
Mrs. Lightfoot sat knitting. While he slowly settled his foot, in its loose
"carpet" slipper, upon the ottoman, he began a rambling story of the War of
1812, recalling with relish a time when rations grew scant in camp, and
"Will Bolling and myself set out to scour the country." His