“I certainly was; but I am a bad rebel and you are good little Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they’re twenty odd befo’ they do anything ve’y ridiculous.”

“We expect to wait,” said Paige, with a dignified glance at her sister.

“You’ve four years to wait, then,” laughed Marye.

“What’s the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?”

“And you’ve three years to wait, silly,” retorted Paige.  “But I don’t care; I’d rather wait.  It isn’t very long, now.  Ailsa, why don’t you marry again?”

Ailsa’s lip curled her comment upon the suggestion.  She sat under the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been sent recently to Celia.  Presently her agreeable voice sounded in appreciative recitation of what she was reading.

  “Hath not the morning dawned with added light? 
    And shall not evening call another star
  Out of the infinite regions of the night
    To mark this day in Heaven?  At last we are
  A nation among nations; and the world
    Shall soon behold in many a distant port
      Another flag unfurled!”
“Listen, Celia,” she said, “this is really beautiful: 

A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig’s cheeks, but she said nothing.  And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of Timrod’s “Ethnogenesis”: 

  “Now come what may, whose favour need we court? 
  And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?”

She stopped short, considering the printed page.  Then, doubtfully: 

  “And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
  In their own treachery caught,
  By their own fears made bold,
  And leagued with him of old
  Who long since, in the limits of the North,
  Set up his evil throne, and warred with God—­
  What if, both mad and blinded in their rage
  Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,
  And with a hostile horde profane our sod!”

The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page; then: 

  “Nor would we shun the battleground!
  . . .  The winds in our defence
  Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
    Their firmness and their calm,
  And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
    The strength of pine and palm! 
  Call up the clashing elements around
  And test the right and wrong! 
  On one side creeds that dare to preach
  What Christ and Paul refused to teach——­”

“Oh!” she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; “Do they believe such things of us in the South, Celia?”

The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig’s cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered.  She meditated.  Then:  “Honey-bell,” she said tranquilly, “if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain.”

“A nation!”

“Dear, we have always been that—­only the No’th has just found it out.  Charleston is telling her now.  God give that our cannon need not repeat it.”