thing won't work."

"But isn't that partly the reason? Isn't her failure a great deal due to
this lack of sympathy from her neighbors? Discontent is easily sown,
and the negro is still weighted down by superstition; the Fifteenth
Amendment did not quite knock off ALL his chains."

"Yes, but that is nothing to HER. For if there ever was a person in this
world who reckoned she was just born to manage everything and everybody,
it is Sally Dows!"

"Sally Dows!" repeated Courtland, with a slight start.

"Yes, Sally Dows, of Pineville."

"You say she was half Union, but did she have any relations
or--or--friends--in the war--on your side? Any--who--were killed in
battle?"

"They were all killed, I reckon," returned Miss Reed darkly. "There was
her cousin, Jule Jeffcourt, shot in the cemetery with her beau, who,
they say, was Sally's too; there were Chet Brooks and Joyce Masterton,
who were both gone on her and both killed too; and there was old Captain
Dows himself, who never lifted his head again after Richmond was taken,
and drank himself to death. It wasn't considered healthy to be Miss
Sally's relations in those times, or to be even wantin' to be one."

Colonel Courtland did not reply. The face of the dead young officer
coming towards him out of the blue smoke rose as vividly as on that
memorable day. The picture and letter he had taken from the dead man's
breast, which he had retained ever since; the romantic and fruitless
quest he had made for the fair original in after days; and the strange
and fateful interest in her which had grown up in his heart since then,
he now knew had only been lulled to sleep in the busy preoccupation of
the last six months, for it all came back to him with redoubled force.
His present mission and its practical object, his honest zeal in its
pursuit, and the cautious skill and experience he had brought to it,
all seemed to be suddenly displaced by this romantic and unreal fantasy.
Oddly enough it appeared now to be the only reality in his life, the
rest was an incoherent, purposeless dream.

"Is--is--Miss Sally married?" he asked, collecting himself with an
effort.

"Married? Yes, to that farm of her aunt's! I reckon that's the only
thing she cares for."

Courtland looked up, recovering his usual cheerful calm. "Well, I think
that after luncheon I'll pay my respects to her family. From what you
have just told me the farm is certainly an experiment worth seeing. I
suppose your fa