Virginia’s eye flashed appreciation.

“Do you remember, Jinny,” he cried, “one day long ago when those Dutch ruffians were teasing you and Anne on the road, and Bert Russell and Jack and I came along?  We whipped ’em, Jinny.  And my eye was closed.  And you were bathing it here, and one of my buttons was gone.  And you counted the rest.”

“Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,” she recited, laughing.  She crossed over and sat beside him, and her tone changed.  “Max, can’t you understand?  It isn’t that.  Max, if you would only work at something.  That is why the Yankees beat us.  If you would learn to weld iron, or to build bridges, or railroads.  Or if you would learn business, and go to work in Pa’s store.”

“You do not care for me as I am?”

“I knew that you did not understand,” she answered passionately.  “It is because I care for you that I wish to make you great.  You care too much for a good time, for horses, Max.  You love the South, but you think too little how she is to be saved.  If war is to come, we shall want men like that Captain Robert Lee who was here.  A man who can turn the forces of the earth to his own purposes.”

For a moment Clarence was moodily silent.

“I have always intended to go into politics, after Pa’s example,” he said at length.

“Then—­” began Virginia, and paused.

“Then—?” he said.

“Then—­you must study law.”

He gave her the one keen look.  And she met it, with her lips tightly pressed together.  Then he smiled.

“Virginia, you will never forgive that Yankee, Brice.”

“I shall never forgive any Yankee,” she retorted quickly.  “But we are not talking about him.  I am thinking of the South, and of you.”

He stooped toward her face, but she avoided him and went back to the bench.

“Why not?” he said.

“You must prove first that you are a man,” she said.

For years he remembered the scene.  The vineyard, the yellow stubble; and the river rushing on and on with tranquil power, and the slow panting of the steamboat.  A doe ran out of the forest, and paused, her head raised, not twenty feet away.

“And then you will marry me, Jinny?” he asked finally.

“Before you may hope to control another, we shall see whether you can control yourself, sir.”

“But it has all been arranged,” he exclaimed, “since we played here together years ago!”

“No one shall arrange that for me,” replied Virginia promptly.  “And I should think that you would wish to have some of the credit for yourself.”

“Jinny!”

Again she avoided him by leaping the low railing.  The doe fled into the forest, whistling fearfully.  Virginia waved her hand to him and started toward the house.  At the corner of the porch she ran into her aunt Mrs. Colfax was a beautiful woman.  Beautiful when Addison Colfax married her in Kentucky at nineteen, beautiful still at three and forty.  This, I am aware, is a bald statement.  “Prove it,” you say.  “We do not believe it.  It was told you by some old beau who lives upon the memory of the past.”