. But I am disappointed in Demming. I thought I had
won his affection, and I hoped through his affection to reach his
conscience. I suppose I deceived myself."

"I fear he hasn't any conscience to reach," Louise observed.

"I agree with Miss Louise," said Talboys. "You see, Demming is a
cracker."

"Ah! the cracker has his virtues," observed the Bishop; "not the
cardinal New England virtues of thrift and cleanliness and energy; but
he has his own. He is as hospitable as an Arab, brave, faithful, and
honest, and full of generosity and kindness."

"All the same, he isn't half civilized," said Talboys, "and as
ignorant morally as any being you can pick up. He doesn't steal or
lie much, I grant you, but he smashes all the other commandments to
flinders. He kills when he thinks he has been insulted, and he hasn't
the feeblest scruples about changing his old wife for a new one
whenever he feels like it, without any nonsense of divorce. The women
are just as bad as the men. But Demming is not only a cracker; he is
a cracker spoiled by the tourists. We have despoiled him of his
simplicity. He hasn't learned any good of us,--that goes without
saying,--but he has learned no end of Yankee tricks. Do you suppose
that if left to himself he would ever have been up to this morning's
performance? Oh, we've polished his wicked wits for him! Even his
dialect is no longer pure South Carolinian; it is corrupted by
Northern slang. We have ruined his religious principles, too.
The crackers haven't much of any morality, but they are very
religious,--all Southerners are. But Demming is an unconscious
Agnostic. 'I tell ye,' he says to the saloon theologians, 'thar ain't
no tellin'. 'Ligion's a heap like jumpin' arter a waggin in th' dark;
yo' mo'n likely ter lan' on nuthin'!' And you have seen for yourselves
that he has lost the cracker honesty."

"At least," said Louise, "he has the cracker hospitality left; he made
us welcome to all he had."

"And did you notice," said the Bishop, who had quite smoothed his
ruffled brow by this time,--"did you notice the consideration,
tenderness almost, that he showed to his wife? Demming has his
redeeming qualities, believe me, Mr. Talboys."

"I see that you don't mean to give him up," said Talboys, smiling; but
he did not pursue the subject.

For several days Demming kept away from Aiken. When he did appear
he rather avoided the Bishop. He bore the jokes and satirical
congratulations of his compa