I. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

LIV. AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE

LV. HOME-SICKNESS ALLEVIATED

LVI. CONCERNING SECOND LOVE

LVII. GO ON, SAYS BARBARA

LVIII. TOGETHER AGAIN

LIX. THIS TIME SHE WARNS HIM

LX. A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING

LXI. A SICK MAN AND A SICK HORSE

LXII. RAVENEL THINKS HE MUST

LXIII. LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS

LXIV. JUDICIOUS JOHANNA

LXV. THE ENEMY IN THE REAR

LXVI. WARM HEARTS, HOT WORDS, COOL FRIENDS

LXVII. PROBLEM: IS AN UNCONFIRMED DISTRUST NECESSARILY A DEAD ASSET?

LXVIII. FAREWELL, WIDEWOOD

LXIX. IN YANKEE LAND

LXX. ACROSS THE MEADOWS

LXXI. IN THE WOODS

LXXII. MY GOOD GRACIOUS, MISS BARB

LXXIII. IMMEDIATELY AFTER CHAPEL

LXXIV. COMPLETE COLLAPSE OF A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING

LXXV. A YEAR'S VICISSITUDES

LXXVI. AGAINST OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

LXXVII. "LINES OF LIGHT ON A SULLEN SEA"

LXXVIII. BARBARA FINDS THE RHYME

JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER

I.

SUEZ

In the State of Dixie, County of Clearwater, and therefore in the very
heart of what was once the "Southern Confederacy," lies that noted seat
of government of one county and shipping point for three, Suez. The
pamphlet of a certain land company--a publication now out of print and
rare, but a copy of which it has been my good fortune to
secure--mentions the battle of Turkey Creek as having been fought only a
mile or so north of the town in the spring of 1864. It also strongly
recommends to the attention of both capitalist and tourist the beautiful
mountain scenery of Sandstone County, which adjoins Clearwater a few
miles from Suez on the north, and northeast, as Blackland does, much
farther away, on the southwest.

In the last year of our Civil War Suez was a basking town of twenty-five
hundred souls, with rocky streets and breakneck sidewalks, its dwellings
dozing most months of the twelve among roses and honeysuckles behind
anciently whitewashed, much-broken fences, and all the place wrapped in
that wide sweetness of apple and acacia scents that comes from whole
mobs of dog-fennel. The Pulaski City turnpike entered at the northwest
corner and passed through to the court-house green with its hollow
square of stores and law-offices--two sides of it blackened ruins of
fire and war. Under the town's southeasternmost angle, between yellow
banks and over-hanging sycamores, the bright green waters of Turkey
Creek, rambling round from the north and east, skipped down a gradual
stairway of limestone ledges, and