Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"One morning, the faithful servant who aided him in all his experiments informed him that the bees had already solved the problem for themselves. They had in various hives conceived and carried out divers systems of defence and fortification. Here they had constructed a waxen wall, with narrow windows, through which the huge enemy could not pass; and there, by a more ingenious invention, without stirring anything, they had placed at their gates intersecting arcades or little partitions, one behind another, but alternating, so that opposite the empty spaces between those of the first row stood the partitions of the second row. Thus were contrived numerous openings for the impatient crowd of bees, who could go out and come in as usual, and without any other obstacle than the slight one of going a little zigzag; but limits, absolute obstructions, for the great, clumsy enemy, who could not enter with his unfolded wings, nor even insinuate himself without bruises between the narrow corridors.

"This was the _coup d'etat_ of the lower orders, the revolution of insects, executed by the bees, not only against those that robbed them, but against those that denied their intelligence. The theorists who refuse that to them, the Malebranches and the Buffons, must consider themselves conquered. We go back to the reserve of the great students of Nature, the Swammerdams, the Reaumurs, who, far from contesting the genius of insects, give us numberless facts to prove that it is flexible, that it can increase with dangers and with obstacles, that it can quit routine, and in certain circumstances make unexpected progress."

Intelligence among the inferior animals seems always more or less an affair of acute senses; the bee certainly ought to manifest much of it, for his senses are extraordinary. Not to speak of that singular sixth sense of the antennae, by whose power alone he fashions his cell and seems to make and receive communication, nor of his wonderful eyesight, to which a double kind of eye contributes, one portion of it being for distance and another for vertical objects or for closer work,--although there are naturalists who consider these stemmata as a possible organ of hearing,--he has a sense of smell which must surpass that of any other creature on the wing: it is perhaps to this lively faculty that he owes his marvellous cleanliness. Feburier states that at one time the bees, attracted by the lemon-trees and flowers of Cuba, emigrated thither in a body from the mainland of Florida, a distance of twenty-five leagues,--the fact, however, being that their owners emigrated and took them with them. But they have been positively known to track heath a distance of four miles, and that across water, through an atmosphere in which the faint scent of the heath must have mingled with all the powerful salt odor of the sea. Strong little wings they must be, too, to travel these distances, and yet perform all the other labor allotted them; for every day, while some with their burdens are entering the black hive, and some are darting out again into the glaring sunlight full of business and on new errands, others may always be distinguished stationed by the door and fanning their bits of wings backward and forward in ventilation of the hive. Although disputatious to the last, Mr. Huish insists that this motion is nothing but the expression of intense satisfaction and joy. Either way, it would seem as if an answering rest must be required in order to repair such wear and tear; and on this point an old Spanish writer sets it down that bees sleep during every night and on all fast-days in addition, and a corroborating investigator remarks that he has seen them withdraw into the empty cells, and, composing themselves, their heads towards the bottom, enjoy the deepest slumber, the body gently heaving with the breath, and every little limb relaxed,--to which another person replies, that this is an outrageous statement, for it is a decided fact that sleep is as much a stranger to the eye of a bee as it is to the eye of a herring. Yet in the German countries much of the labor of flight is after all spared them, their owners collecting them into caravans, conducting them gypsy-wise, encamping here and encamping there, through whatever districts linger latest in bloom. They build bee-barges, too, in France, capacious enough for a hundred hives, and drift them down the rivers, so that the bees shall follow the summer as it flits southward. And in Lower Egypt, where the blossoming continues much longer than in the upper regions, Niebuhr saw an assemblage of four thousand hives upon the Nile; anchoring at places of plentiest pasturage: the bees thus float from one end of the land to the other before they return and enrich their proprietors with the honey they have harvested from the orange-flowers and jasmines of the Said and all the wealthy banks of the mighty river. The hunter in America takes advantage of this clear sight and of this strength of wing when, he lines a bee to its nest, by alluring one to a bait of honey within a circle of wet white paint, watching the subsequent flight, letting off another, similarly secured, at right angles to that, and looking for the nest at the intersection of the two white lines. Nor is the hunter their only depredator. At the Cape of Good Hope there lives a bird known as the Honey-Guide, that enters into alliance with man, sounds its shrill note, and, fluttering from spray to spray, leads the way to the sweet resort: it would be sacrilege, if the Hottentot did not leave a portion of the honey to the informer. There, too, is the rattel, a little beast that at sunset shelters its eyes with a paw, for clearer view, spots a bee, and follows it: often these two make fellowship together, the one for the honey, the bird for the brood. But these are not the terrors of a temperate clime; the hives can despatch a field-mouse unassisted; the master who cannot rid them of the wax-moth they will desert without regrets; sounding the slogan for aid, no two bees will hesitate to grapple with the bold butchering wasp that invades them; the humble-bee, making her underground nest, the poppy-bee, fitting her splendid scarlet tapestry, however many each may have, recks of few enemies beyond the rain and storm. What should any one of them all remember about the tomtit that comes and taps outside and snaps each resident up as it appears inquiring at the gate? of the little feathered monster that tears bees to pieces, making shreds of heads and wings for his mere amusement? To them a briefer memory makes brief life blessed. The happy murmurer of our morning knows of little but peace and security, he does not even dream that _savans_ infuriate themselves about him, he buzzes from flower to flower, daringly puts aside the curtain of sacred shrines and makes himself luxurious hermitage in the snowy depths of the lilies, lets the south wind swing him a moment on the golden cradle of kingcups, pursues his pleasures in the purple recesses of the hyacinth, or, gliding into a labyrinth of petals, between the silken linings of perfumed chambers, the tinted sunlight softly sifting through, revels with the gracious nymphs that wait there, that hail him, caress him, and give him their confidence all under the rose; he goes his way, and his music spurns the trail of melancholy that never fails to follow the most delicious warble that ever trilled from throat of bobolink or throstle. As you lie and listen, in the golden tenor of the hive-bee's hum seems diffused the wide whisper of continuous gladness; and giving the innermost note of summer and of noon, the booming bass of the humble-bee blazons abroad all poetry and beauty and sumptuous delight.

"Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone,
Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wilderness found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure."

COUNTESS LAURA.

It was a dreary day in Padua.
The Countess Laura, for a single year
Fernando's wife, upon her bridal bed,
Like an uprooted lily on the snow,
The withered outcast of a festival,
Lay dead. She died of some uncertain ill,
That struck her almost on her wedding-day,
And clung to her, and dragged her slowly down,
Thinning her cheeks and pinching her full lips,
Till, in her chance, it seemed that with a year
Full half a century was overpast.
In vain had Paracelsus taxed his art,
And feigned a knowledge of her malady;
In vain had all the doctors, far and near,
Gathered around the mystery of her bed,
Draining her veins, her husband's treasury,
And physic's jargon, in a fruitless quest
For causes equal to the dread result.
The Countess only smiled, when they were gone,
Hugged her fair body with her little hands,
And turned upon her pillows wearily,
As if she fain would sleep, no common sleep,
But the long, breathless slumber of the grave.
She hinted nothing. Feeble as she was,
The rack could not have wrung her secret out
The Bishop, when he shrived her, coming forth,
Cried, in a voice of heavenly ecstasy,
"O blessed soul! with nothing to confess,
Save virtues and good deeds, which she mistakes--
So humble is she--for our human sins!"
Praying for death, she tossed upon her bed,
Day after day,--as might a shipwrecked bark
That rocks upon one billow, and can make
No onward motion towards her port of hope.
At length, one morn, when those around her said,
"Surely the Countess mends, so fresh a light
Beams from her eyes and beautifies her face,"--
One morn in spring, when every flower of earth
Was opening to the sun, and breathing up
Its votive incense, her impatient soul
Opened itself, and so exhaled to heaven.
When the Count heard it, he reeled back a pace;
Then turned with anger on the messenger;
Then craved his pardon, and wept out his heart
Before the menial: tears, ah, me! such tears
As Love sheds only, and Love only once.
Then he bethought him, "Shall this wonder die
And leave behind no shadow? not a trace
Of all the glory that environed her,
That mellow nimbus circling round my star?"
So, with his sorrow glooming in his face,
He paced along his gallery of Art,
And strode amongst the painters, where they stood,
With Carlo, the Venetian, at their head,
Studying the Masters by the dawning light
Of his transcendent genius. Through the groups
Of gayly vestured artists moved the Count,--
As some lone cloud of thick and leaden hue,
Packed with the secret of a coming storm,
Moves through the gold and crimson evening mists,
Deadening their splendor. In a moment, still
Was Carlo's voice, and still the prattling crowd;
And a great shadow overran them all,
As their white faces and their anxious eyes
Pursued Fernando in his moody walk.
He paused, as one who balances a doubt,
Weighing two courses, then burst out with this:
"Ye all have seen the tidings in my face;
Or has the dial ceased to register
The workings of my heart? Then hear the bell,
That almost cracks the frame in utterance:
The Countess--she is dead!"--"Dead!" Carlo groaned.
And if a bolt from middle heaven had struck
His splendid features full upon the brow,
He could not have appeared more scathed and blanched.
"Dead!--dead!" He staggered to his easel-frame,
And clung around it, buffeting the air
With one wild arm, as though a drowning man
Hung to a spar and fought against the waves.--
The Count resumed: "I came not here to grieve,
Nor see my sorrow in another's eyes.
Who'll paint the Countess, as she lies to-night
In state within the chapel? Shall it be
That earth must lose her wholly? that no hint
Of her gold tresses, beaming eyes, and lips
That talked in silence, and the eager soul
That ever seemed outbreaking through her clay,
And scattering glory round it,--shall all these
Be dull corruption's heritage, and we,
Poor beggars, have no legacy to show
The love she bore us? That were shame to love,
And shame to you, my masters." Carlo stalked
Forth from his easel, stiffly as a thing
Moved by mechanic impulse. His thin lips,
And sharpened nostrils, and wan, sunken cheeks,
And the cold glimmer in his dusky eyes,
Made him a ghastly sight. The throng drew back,
As if they let a spectre through. Then he,
Fronting the Count, and speaking in a voice
Sounding remote and hollow, made reply:
"Count, I shall paint the Countess. 'Tis my fate,--
Not pleasure,--no, nor duty." But the Count,
Astray in woe, but understood assent,
Not the strange words that bore it; and he flung
His arm round Carlo, drew him to his breast,
And kissed his forehead. At which Carlo shrank:
Perhaps 'twas at the honor. Then the Count,
A little reddening at his public state,--
Unseemly to his near and recent loss,--
Withdrew in haste between the downcast eyes
That did him reverence as he rustled by.

Night fell on Padua. In the chapel lay
The Countess Laura at the altar's foot.
Her coronet glittered on her pallid brows;
A crimson pall, weighed down with golden work,
Sown thick with pearls, and heaped with early flowers,
Draped her still body almost to the chin;
And over all a thousand candles flamed
Against the winking jewels, or streamed down
The marble aisle, and flashed along the guard
Of men-at-arms that slowly wove their turns,
Backward and forward, through the distant gloom.
When Carlo entered, his unsteady feet
Scarce bore him to the altar, and his head
Drooped down so low that all his shining curls
Poured on his breast, and veiled his countenance.
Upon his easel a half-finished work,
The secret labor of his studio,
Said from the canvas, so that none might err,
"I am the Countess Laura." Carlo kneeled,
And gazed upon the picture,--as if thus,
Through those clear eyes, he saw the way to heaven.
Then he arose; and as a swimmer comes
Forth from the waves, he shook his locks aside,
Emerging from his dream, and standing firm
Upon a purpose with his sovereign will.
He took his palette, murmuring, "Not yet!"
Confidingly and softly to the corpse;
And as the veriest drudge who plies his art
Against his fancy, he addressed himself
With stolid resolution to his task.
Turning his vision on his memory,
And shutting out the present, till the dead,
The gilded pall, the lights, the pacing guard,
And all the meaning of that solemn scene
Became as nothing, and creative Art
Resolved the whole to chaos, and reformed
The elements according to her law,--
So Carlo wrought, as though his eye and hand
Were Heaven's unconscious instruments, and worked
The settled purpose of Omnipotence.
And it was wondrous how the red, the white,
The ochre, and the umber, and the blue,
From mottled blotches, hazy and opaque,
Grew into rounded forms and sensuous lines;
How just beneath the lucid skin the blood
Glimmered with warmth, the scarlet lips apart
Bloomed with the moisture of the dews of life;
How the light glittered through and underneath
The golden tresses, and the deep, soft eyes
Became intelligent with conscious thought,
And somewhat troubled underneath the arch
Of eyebrows but a little too intense
For perfect beauty; how the pose and poise
Of the lithe figure on its tiny foot
Suggested life just ceased from motion; so
That any one might cry, in marvelling joy,
"That creature lives,--has senses, mind, a soul
To win God's love or dare hell's subtleties!"
The artist paused. The ratifying "Good"
Trembled upon his lips. He saw no touch
To give or soften. "It is done," he cried,--
"My task, my duty! Nothing now on earth
Can taunt me with a work left unfulfilled!"
The lofty flame which bore him up so long
Died in the ashes of humanity;
And the mere man rocked to and fro again
Upon the centre of his wavering heart.
He put aside his palette, as if thus
He stepped from sacred vestments, and assumed
A mortal function in the common world.
"Now for my rights!" he muttered, and approached
The noble body. "O lily of the world!
So withered, yet so lovely! what wast thou
To those who came thus near thee--for I stood
Without the pale of thy half-royal rank--
When thou wast budding, and the streams of life
Made eager struggles to maintain thy bloom,
And gladdened heaven dropped down in gracious dews
On its transplanted darling? Hear me now!
I say this but in justice, not in pride,
Not to insult thy high nobility,
But that the poise of things in God's own sight
May be adjusted, and hereafter I
May urge a claim that all the powers of heaven
Shall sanction, and with clarions blow abroad.
Laura, you loved me! Look not so severe,
With your cold brows, and deadly, close-drawn lips!
You proved it, Countess, when you died for it,--
Let it consume you in the wearing strife
It fought with duty in your ravaged heart.
I knew it ever since that summer-day
I painted Lila, the pale beggar's child,
At rest beside the fountain; when I felt--
Oh, heaven!--the warmth and moisture of your breath
Blow through my hair, as with your eager soul--
Forgetting soul and body go as one--
You leaned across my easel till our cheeks--
Ah, me! 'twas not your purpose--touched, and clung!
Well, grant 'twas genius; and is genius nought?
I ween it wears as proud a diadem--
Here, in this very world--as that you wear.
A king has held my palette, a grand-duke
Has picked my brush up, and a pope has begged
The favor of my presence in his Rome.
I did not go; I put my fortune by.
I need not ask you why: you knew too well.
It was but natural, it was no way strange,
That I should love you. Everything that saw,
Or had its other senses, loved you, sweet!
And I amongst them. Martyr, holy saint,--
I see the halo curving round your head,--
I loved you once; but now I worship you,
For the great deed that held my love aloof,
And killed you in the action! I absolve
Your soul from any taint. For from the day
Of that encounter by the fountain-side
Until this moment, never turned on me
Those tender eyes, unless they did a wrong
To Nature by the cold, defiant glare
With which they chilled me. Never heard I word
Of softness spoken by those gentle lips;
Never received a bounty from that hand
Which gave to all the world. I know the cause.
You did your duty,--not for honor's sake,
Nor to save sin or suffering or remorse,
Or all the ghosts that haunt a woman's shame,
But for the sake of that pure, loyal love
Your husband bore you. Queen, by grace of God,
I bow before the lustre of your throne!
I kiss the edges of your garment-hem,
And hold myself ennobled! Answer me,--
If I had wronged you, you would answer me
Out of the dusty porches of the tomb,--
Is this a dream, a falsehood? or have I
Spoken the very truth?"--"The very truth!"
A voice replied; and at his side he saw
A form, half shadow and half substance, stand,
Or, rather, rest; for on the solid earth
It had no footing, more than some dense mist
That wavers o'er the surface of the ground
It scarcely touches. With a reverent look,
The shadow's waste and wretched face was bent
Above the picture,--as if greater awe
Subdued its awful being, and appalled,
With memories of terrible delight
And fearful wonder, its devouring gaze.
"You make what God makes,--beauty," said the shape.
"And might not this, this second Eve, console
The emptiest heart? Will not this thing outlast
The fairest creature fashioned in the flesh?
Before that figure Time, and Death himself,
Stand baffled and disarmed. What would you ask
More than God's power, from nothing to create?"
The artist gazed upon the boding form,
And answered: "Goblin, if you had a heart,
That were an idle question. What to me
Is my creative power, bereft of love?
Or what to God would be that selfsame power,
If so bereaved?"--"And yet the love thus mourned
You calmly forfeited. For had you said
To living Laura--in her burning ears--
One half that you professed to Laura dead,
She would have been your own. These contraries
Sort not with my intelligence. But say,
Were Laura living, would the same stale play
Of raging passion, tearing out its heart
Upon the rock of duty, be performed?"
"The same, O phantom, while the heart I bear
Trembled, but turned not its magnetic faith
From God's fixed centre." "If I wake for you
This Laura,--give her all the bloom and glow
Of that midsummer day you hold so dear,--
The smile, the motion, the impulsive heart,
The love of genius,--yea, the very love,
The mortal, hungry, passionate, hot love,
She bore you, flesh to flesh,--would you receive
That gift, in all its glory, at my hands?"
A cruel smile arched the tempter's scornful lips,
And glittered in the caverns of his eyes,
Mocking the answer. Carlo paled and shook;
A woful spasm went shuddering through his frame,
Curdling his blood, and twisting his fair face
With nameless torture. But he cried aloud,
Out of the clouds of anguish, from the smoke
Of very martyrdom, "O God, she is thine!
Do with her at thy pleasure!" Something grand,
And radiant as a sunbeam, touched the head
He bent in awful sorrow. "Mortal, see"----
"Dare not! As Christ was sinless, I abjure
These vile abominations! Shall she bear
Life's burden twice, and life's temptations twice,
While God is justice?" "Who has made you judge
Of what you call God's good, and what you think
God's evil? One to Him, the Source of both,
The God of good and of permitted ill.
Have you no dream of days that might have been,
Had you and Laura filled another fate?
Some cottage on the sloping Apennines,
Roses and lilies, and the rest all love?
I tell you that this tranquil dream may be
Filled to repletion. Speak, and in the shade
Of my dark pinions I shall bear you hence,
And land you where the mountain goat himself
Struggles for footing." He outspread his wings,
And all the chapel darkened, as if hell
Had swallowed up the tapers; and the air
Grew thick, and, like a current sensible,
Flowed round the person, with a wash and dash,
As of the waters of a nether sea.
Slowly and calmly through the dense obscure,
Dove-like and gentle, rose the artist's voice:
"I dare not bring her spirit to that shame!
Know my full meaning,--I that neither fear
Your mystic person nor your dreadful power.
Nor shall I now invoke God's potent name
For my deliverance from your toils. I stand
Upon the founded structure of His law,
Established from the first, and thence defy
Your arts, reposing all my trust in that!"
The darkness eddied off; and Carlo saw
The figure gathering, as from outer space,
Brightness on brightness; and his former shape
Fell from him, like the ashes that fall off,
And show a core of mellow fire within.
Adown his wings there poured a lambent flood,
That seemed as molten gold, which plashing fell
Upon the floor, enringing him with flame;
And o'er the tresses of his beaming head
Arose a stream of many-colored light,
Like that which crowns the morning. Carlo stood
Steadfast, for all the splendor, reaching up
The outstretched palms of his untainted soul
Towards heaven for strength. A moment thus; then asked,
With reverential wonder quivering through
His sinking voice, "Who, spirit, and what art thou?"
"I am that blessing which men fly from,--Death."
"Then take my hand, if so God orders it;
For Laura waits me." "But bethink thee, man,
What the world loses in the loss of thee!
What wondrous Art will suffer with eclipse!
What unwon glories are in store for thee!
What fame, outreaching time and temporal shocks,
Would shine upon the letters of thy name
Graven in marble, or the brazen height
Of columns wise with memories of thee!"
"Take me! If I outlived the Patriarchs,
I could but paint those features o'er and o'er;
Lo! that is done." A pitying smile o'erran
The seraph's features, as he looked to heaven,
With deep inquiry in his tender eyes.
The mandate came. He touched with downy wing
The sufferer lightly on his aching heart;
And gently, as the sky-lark settles down
Upon the clustered treasures of her nest,
So Carlo softly slid along the prop
Of his tall easel, nestling at the foot
As if he slumbered; and the morning broke
In silver whiteness over Padua.

STRATEGY AT THE FIRESIDE.

I.

Was it the fault of poor Barbara Dinwiddie, that, when Sumter fell, and the gallant Anderson saw with anguish the old flag pulled down, she was the most desperate little Rebel in all Dixie? By no means! At school, at home, at church, she had been taught that Slavery was the divinest of all divine institutions; that all those outside barbarians, known as Yankees, who questioned its justice, its policy, its eternal fitness, were worse than infidels; that those favored individuals whose felicity it had been to be born and bred under the patriarchal benignity were the master race of this continent; and that one Southern man could, with perfect ease to himself, and without any risk whatever of any unpleasant consequences, whip and put _hors de combat_ any five of the "homeless and traditionless race" that could be brought against him.

Had not Mr. Jefferson Davis so styled them? and had he not said that he would rather herd with hyenas than with Yankees? Had not Mr. Yancey declared that all the Yankees were cowards? Had not Mr. Walker, Secretary of State of the new Confederacy, predicted that the "stars and bars" would wave over Faneuil Hall in a twelvemonth? Had not the Richmond papers assured the high-born sons of the South, who of course included the whole white population, that it was an utter impossibility for the chivalry to exist under the same government with the mean, intolerable mudsills of the North? The wonder was, that the aforesaid chivalry could live under the same sun, breathe the same atmosphere, with such miscreants.

Was it, then, surprising that poor little Barbara, receiving in her narrow sphere no other political influences than these, should find herself at the age of seventeen the most eager of feminine sympathizers with Secession? She burned to emulate Mrs. Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and other enterprising Amazons who early in the war distinguished themselves as spies or carriers for the Rebels. She almost blamed herself as recreant, because she read with a shudder the account of that Southern damsel who bade her lover bring back, as the most precious gift he could lay at her feet, a Yankee scalp. She tried to persuade herself that those little mementos, carved from Yankee bones, which were so fashionable at one time among the _elite_ of the "Secesh" aristocracy, would not shock her own sensitive heart.

Barbara's mother had done much to encourage these sentiments in her daughter. A match between Barbara and Colonel Pegram of South Carolina was one of that mother's pet projects. Mrs. Dinwiddie was of "one of the first families of Virginia"; in which she was not singular. She had been brought up to regard the Old Dominion as the lawful dictatress of the legislation of the American continent; as sovereign, not only over her own borders, but over the Congress and especially the Treasury of the United States. The tobacco-lands of her father having given out through that sagacious system of culture which Slavery applies, and negro-raising for the supply of the slave-market farther south being in a temporary condition of paralysis, the lady had so far descended from her pedestal of ancestral pride as to encourage the addresses of Mr. Daniel Dinwiddie, a Baltimore merchant, and himself "of excellent family," though he had tarnished his hereditary honors by condescending to engage in trade. Two children were the fruits of the alliance which ensued,--our Barbara, and Mr. Culpepper Dinwiddie, who became eventually a major in the Rebel army.

What a _dies irae_ it was for poor Mrs. Dinwiddie, that day that "Beast Butler" rode at a slow walk through the streets of Baltimore, smoking his cigar, and swaying to and fro carelessly on his horse! The poor lady was ready to cuff Mr. Dinwiddie's ears, because that worthy citizen sat down to his mutton and claret that day at dinner as coolly as if nothing had happened. Barbara wept, and sang "My Maryland" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag" till she made herself hoarse. She then glanced at a photograph of Colonel Pegram, and thought how well he looked the conquering hero.

Sunday came. It was a blessed satisfaction that at the Church of St. Fortunatus all the communicants were friends of the Rebellion. The Reverend Bogus de Bogus was himself an extremist in his advocacy of Slavery and the Slave Confederacy. But what was the consternation of the whole assembly, at hearing him, on that eventful Sabbath, pray for the President and other authorities of the United States! Had he been tampered with by the Beast? What was the world coming to? How intolerable that the solar system should move on as regularly and indifferently as if nothing had happened!

The fomenters of Rebellion in the Monument City continued hopeful, notwithstanding the defection of the Reverend Bogus de Bogus. Mrs. Dinwiddie almost worried Dinwiddie's life out, teasing him for money with which to buy quinine and percussion-caps to smuggle into Rebeldom. Barbara worked till her taper little forefinger looked like a nutmeg-grater, making shirts and drawers for the "gallant Palmetto Tenth," in which certain sprigs of aristocracy from Baltimore had enlisted. The regiment was commanded by that splendid fellow, Charlie Pegram.

What was Barbara's despair, on learning that all the products of her labors had been intercepted by the "Beast," and were safely stored at "these headquarters"! Mrs. Dinwiddie went into hysterics at the news, but was suddenly restored, on hearing Dinwiddie enter, and inquire in the most cold-blooded manner, "Why isn't dinner ready?" Falling upon that monster in human shape, she crushed him so far into silence by her indignation, that he was glad to make a meal of a few crackers and a glass of ale, and then retire for his afternoon cigar to the repose of his counting-room.

The war (the civil, not the domestic, we mean) went on. Battle succeeded battle, and skirmish skirmish, with alternating successes, when at last came the Emancipation Proclamation, not in the earthquake, nor in the whirlwind, but in the still small voice. "Well, what of it? 'Tis a mere paper bomb!" said Belshazzar at Richmond, looking out on Libby and Belle Isle. Mrs. Dinwiddie read the "Richmond Enquirer," and thought, for the thousandth time, how intolerable life would be, if ever again Yankees were to be suffered to live within a thousand miles of a genuine descendant of the Cavaliers. "Spaniels must be whipped into subservience," said Mr. Jefferson Davis, alluding to the abhorred race north of Mason and Dixon's line.

"Yes, they must be whipped!" echoed Mrs. Dinwiddie; and soon afterwards came news of the capture of New Orleans, of Vicksburg, of Port Hudson, and at last of Atlanta. "These horrid Yankees!" she shrieked. "Why don't we do something, Dinwiddie? If one Southerner can whip five Yankees, why, in the name of common sense, don't we do something? Speak, you stupid, provoking man!"

"Yes, yes, what was it you asked?" meekly interrogated Dinwiddie, who was calculating how much he had made in the recent rise of United States five-twenties.

"What was it? Oh, go to your tobacco-casks, your coupons, and your cotton, you soulless, huckstering old man! You can look on and see Abolitionism getting rampant in this once proud city, and not lift a voice or a finger to save us from ruin! You can see Maryland drifting into the horrible abyss of Yankeeism and Anti-slavery, and keep on doing business and minding the paltry affairs of your counting-room, as if all that gives grace and dignity to this wretched State were not on the verge of destruction! If you'd had the spirit of a hare, you'd have been a brigadier-general in the Confederate army by this time."

Dinwiddie was not a man of words. He had a wholesome horror of strong-minded women; and to that class he discovered, too late for his peace, that his wife belonged. So he simply replied, slightly stuttering, as was his wont, except when excited,--

"If I had joined the army, Madam, I should have--have--ve"----

"I should have what?"

"I should have been deprived of your--ahem--agreeable society; and then you might have been a wid--wid--widow."

"I should have been proud. Sir, to have been your widow under such circumstances."

"Thank you, Mrs. Dinwiddie; but being a mod--mod--modest man myself, I'd rather not make my wife proud."

"There's no danger of your ever doing that, Sir," quoth Madam; "but I thank Heaven we're not wholly disgraced. We have one representative of our family in the Confederate army. My son Culpepper may live to make amends for his sire's degeneracy."

Dinwiddie was beginning to get roused.

"My degeneracy, Madam? Confound it, Madam, where would you and yours have been, if I hadn't saved you all from pau--pau--pauperism, Madam?"

It was rare that Dinwiddie made so long a speech, and the lady was astounded.

"Sir," said she, "do you know it is a Culpepper of whom you speak?"

"Devilish well I know it," said the excited Daniel; "and what you all had but your pride I never could find out; and what were you proud of? Of a dozen or two old family nig--nig--niggers, that were only a bill of expense to that pompous old cove, your father."

Mrs. Dinwiddie began to grow livid with exasperation. Her husband had touched her on a tender point.

"Go on, Sir," said she; "I see your drift. I have suspected for some time that you were going to play the renegade; to desert your order; to prove false to the South; to cooperate with miscreant Yankees in overturning our sacred institutions."

"Confound your sacred institutions, Madam! Slavery is played out."

"Played out, you monstrous blasphemer? An institution for which Scripture vouches; an institution which the Reverend Dr. Palmer says comes right down to us from heaven! Played out? Monster! I thank the Lord my two children have not been corrupted by these detestable Yankee notions that are upsetting all our old landmarks in this once noble city of Baltimore."

"Noble? Ah, yes,--noble, I suppose, when it allowed its ruffians to shoot down a band of Northern soldiers who were marching to the support of Government!"

"You yourself said at the time, Mr. Dinwiddie, that it served them right."

Dinwiddie winced, for this was a blow square on his forehead between his two eyes. He paused, and then, without knowing it, translated the words of a Latin moralist, and replied,--

"Times change, and we change with them."

"You will find, Sir, that a Culpepper doesn't change," said Madam; and, with a gesture of queenly scorn, she swept with expansive crinoline out of the room.

"So the ice is broken at last," muttered Dinwiddie. "I wouldn't have believed I could have faced her so well. After all, I'm not sure that the military is not my true sphere."

His soliloquy was interrupted by the ring of muskets on the sidewalk in front, of his house, and he jumped with a nervous horror. Looking from the window, he saw a file of soldiers, and an officer in the United States uniform, with one arm in a sling, and the hand of the other holding a drawn sword. He was a pale, but handsome youth, and looked up as if to read the name on the door. Then, followed by a sergeant, he ascended the steps and rang the bell.

"What the Deuse is all this for. I wonder?" exclaimed Dinwiddie; and in his curiosity he opened the outside door, anticipating the negro footman, Nero, who exchanged a glance of intelligence with the military man.

"I am Captain Penrose, Sir," said the officer; "this is Sergeant MacFuse; you, I believe, bear the name on the door-plate before us."

Dinwiddie bowed an affirmative.

"I have orders, Sir," resumed the officer, "to search your house; and I will thank you to give me the opportunity with as little delay as possible, and without communicating with any member of your family."

"But, Captain, does anybody doubt my loyalty?"

"No one, Sir, that I am aware of," replied the Captain, with a suavity that reassured and captivated Dinwiddie. "We haven't the slightest doubt, Sir, of your thoroughly loyal and honorable conduct and intentions; but, Sir, there is, nevertheless, a Rebel mail in your house at this moment. I'll thank you to conduct us quietly to the little bathing-room communicating with your wife's apartment on the second story."

Dinwiddie saw through it all. He said not a word, but led the way up stairs.

"We shall have to pass through Madam's room to get at the place," he remarked; "for the door is locked on the inside."

"Yes, but the key is out, and I have a duplicate," replied the officer. "We will enter by the door that opens on this passage-way. I will just give a gentle knock, to learn whether any one is in the bathing-room."

He knocked, and there was no reply.

"I think we may venture in," he said.

He unlocked the door, and they entered,--Captain Penrose, Sergeant MacFuse, Dinwiddie, and Nero. The Captain pointed to a chest of drawers let into the wall, and said,--

"Now, Sir, if you will open that lowest drawer, I think you will find what I am in search of."

Dinwiddie opened the drawer, and a strong smell of tobacco, in which some furs were packed, made him sneeze; but the Captain proved to be correct in his surmise. Nero displayed his ivory in a broad grin, and Dinwiddie lifted a small, but well-stuffed leather mail-bag.

At that moment the door leading into Mrs. Dinwiddie's apartment opened, and that lady, followed by Barbara, made her appearance. Nero's grin was at once transformed into a look of intense solemnity, and the whites of his eyes were lifted in sympathetic amazement.

Madam's first effort was to snatch the mail-bag from her husband; but he handed it to Sergeant MacFuse, who, receiving it, shouldered his musket with military formality.

"But this is an outrage, Sir!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinwiddie, finding words at length for her rage.

"Madam," said Captain Penrose, "a carriage ought to be by this time at the door. Have the goodness, you and your daughter, to make the necessary preparations and accompany me and Sergeant MacFuse to the office of the Provost Marshal."

"I shall do no such thing!" said Madam, with set teeth, trembling with exasperation.

"You will relieve me, I am sure, Madam," said the Captain, "of anything so painful as the exercise of force."

"Force!" cried Madam; "yes, that would be all in the line of you mean and dastardly Yankees, to use force to unprotected women!"

"Oh, mother!" said Barbara, shocked, in spite of her Secession sympathies, at the maternal rudeness, and somewhat touched withal by the pale face and the slung arm of the handsome young officer; "I am sure the gentleman has"--

"Gentleman! Ha, ha, ha! You call him a gentleman, do you?" gasped Mrs. Dinwiddie, as, quite beside herself with passion, she sank into a chair.

"Yes, mother," said Barbara, her heart moved by a thrill as natural as that which stirs the leaves of the embryo bud in May; "yes, mother, I call him a gentleman; and I hope you will do nothing to prevent his calling you a lady."

Captain Penrose looked with a sudden interest on the maiden. Strange that he hadn't noticed it before, but truly she was very, very pretty! Light, not too light, hair; blue eyes; a charming figure; a face radiant with sentiment and with intelligence; verily, in all Baltimore, so justly famed for beautiful women, he had not seen her peer! Barbara dropped her eyes. Decidedly the young officer's admiration was too emphatically expressed in his glance.

Mrs. Dinwiddie began to grow hysterical.

"Madam," said Captain Penrose, "I fear your strength will not be equal to the task it is my painful duty to put you to; and I will venture to break through my instructions so far as to say, that, if you will give me your promise--you and your daughter--to remain at home till you receive permission through me to quit the house, I will waive all further action at present."

"There, mother," quoth Barbara, "what could be more reasonable,--more gentlemanly? Say you consent to his terms."

Mrs. Dinwiddie motioned a negative with her handkerchief, and stamped her feet, as if no power on earth should extort from her the slightest concession.

"There, Sir, she consents, she consents, you see," said Barbara.

"Um--um--um!" shrieked Mrs. Dinwiddie, shaking her head, and stamping her feet with renewed vigor.

"I see," said Captain Penrose; "and I need not ask if you, Miss Dinwiddie, also consent."

"I do, Sir; and I thank you for your consideration," said Barbara.

"I don't--don't--don't!" stormed the elderly lady, quivering in every limb, like a blown ribbon.

It was strange that Captain Penrose did not hear the exclamation, loud and emphatic as it was; but he simply bowed and quitted the room, followed by Dinwiddie, Nero, and Sergeant MacFuse.

No sooner had the military men quitted the house than the dinner-bell rang. Madam refused to make her appearance. Barbara came down and presided. Boys in the street were crying the news of Sherman's capture of Savannah.

"Good for Sherman!" said Dinwiddie. "I'm devilish glad of it."

Little Barbara looked up with consternation. She loved her father, but never before had she heard from his lips a decided expression of sympathy with the loyal cause. True, for the last six months he had said little on either side; but, from the absence of any controversy between him and her mother, Barbara imagined that their political sentiments were harmonious.

She made no reply to her father's remark, but kept up in that little brain of hers an amount of thinking that took away all her appetite for the dessert. Mrs. Dinwiddie entered before the table was cleared. Then there was a ring of the door-bell. It was the postman. Nero brought in a letter. Dinwiddie looked at the address.

"'T is a letter for Anjy," said he. "The handwriting looks like Culpepper's."

Anjy, or Angelina, was an old black cook, one of the few surviving representatives of the vanished glories of the old Culpepper estate. She had taken a lively interest in the course of Maryland towards freedom; and when at length that noble Commonwealth stripped off the last fetter from her limbs, and trampled it under her feet, Anjy was loudest among the colored people with her Hallelujahs. She was no longer a slave, thank the Lord! There was a future of justice, of self-respect, of freedom now dawning upon her abused race.

As Anjy could not read, Barbara had been duly authorized to open all her letters. She did so on this occasion, read, turned pale, and exclaimed,--

"Horrible! Oh, the villain!"

"What's the matter?" asked her father.

The letter was from his son, Culpepper, to the old family servant, and was in these words:--

"DEAR ANJY,--I have very unpleasant news to tell you. Your
son Tony has been shot by his master, Colonel Pegram, for
refusing to fight against the Yankees, and trying to run
away. Tony was much to blame. He had been a good boy till
some confounded Abolitionists put it into his head that the
Yankee scum were fighting the battles of the black man;
when, as you well know, Anjy, the true friends of the black
man are those who mean to keep him in that state of slavery
for which the Lord plainly intended him. But Tony got this
foolish notion of the Abolitionists into his head, and one
day frankly told the Colonel that he wouldn't fire a gun at
the Yankees to save his own life; whereupon the Colonel very
properly had him whipped, and pretty badly, too. The next
day Tony was caught trying to make his escape into the
Yankee lines. He was brought before the Colonel, who told
him, that, for your sake, Anjy, he would forgive him, if he
would swear on the Bible not to do so again. Tony refused to
swear this, began to rave about his rights, and finally
declared that he was free, first under God's law, next under
the laws of the United States, and finally under the laws of
Maryland. There were other negroes, slaves of officers, near
by, listening to all this wicked stuff, and Pegram felt the
importance of making an example; so he drew his revolver and
shot Tony through the heart. How could he help it, Anjy? You
mustn't blame the Colonel. We all felt he couldn't have done
otherwise, I saw Tony the minute after he was shot. He died
easy. I emptied his pockets. There was nothing in them but a
photograph of you, Anjy, a printed proclamation by the
wretched Yankee tyrant, Abe Lincoln, and a handkerchief
printed as an American flag. I'm very sorry at this affair;
but you must seek comfort in religion, and pray that your
poor deluded boy may be forgiven for his unfaithfulness and
bad conduct. Affectionately,

"CULPEPPER."

This letter was read aloud,--not by Barbara, nor by her father, but by Mrs. Dinwiddie, who exclaimed, as she finished it,--

"Here's the result of your Yankee teachings, Mr. Dinwiddie! There wasn't a better boy than Tony in all Maryland, till the Abolitionists got hold of him. Pegram served him just right,--just as I would have done."

Dinwiddie rose, pale, trembling, and all his features convulsed. Barbara covered her face with her hands and groaned. Never before had she seen such an expression on her father's face. Turning to his wife, he said in a husky voice, which with a great effort he seemed to make audible,--

"Pegram was a murderer; and you, Madam, if you commend his act, have in you the stuff out of which murderers are made. Now hear me,--you and Miss Barbara here. Here I repudiate Slavery, and every man, woman, or child who helps by word or deed to uphold such deviltry as that you have just read of. Long enough, Madam, I've allowed my conscience to be juggled, fooled, and blinded by your imperious will and absurd family pride. 'T is ended. This day I subscribe ten thousand dollars to the relief of the Georgia freedmen, made free by Sherman. Utter one syllable against it, and, so help me God, I'll make it twenty thousand. Further: if either you or your daughter shall dare, after this warning, to lift a needle in behalf of this Rebellion,--if I hear of either one of you lending yourself to the smuggling of Rebel mails, or giving aid of any kind to Rebel emissaries,--that moment I give you up to the regular authorities and disown you forever. You know that I am a man of few threats; but you also know that what I say I mean."

Dinwiddie waited a full minute for some reply to this unparalleled outburst, and then left the room with an air of dignity which neither Barbara nor her mother had ever witnessed before.

The mother first broke silence. She began with an hysterical laugh, and then said,--

"If he thinks to involve me in his cowardly treason to the South, he'll find himself mistaken. Don't look so pale and frightened, you foolish girl! Go and put on your things for the Bee."

The Bee was a society of fashionable ladies, of pronounced disloyalty, who met once a week to make up garments for Rebel officers.

"I shall go to the Bee no more, mother," said Barbara; "besides, I have given my promise to keep the house till I have permission to quit it."

"And do you venture to set your father's orders above mine, you presuming girl? Are you, too, going to desert the Southern cause?"

Barbara's reply was interrupted by the entrance of old Anjy. The scene which had just transpired had been faithfully transferred to the memory of the listening and observant Nero, who had communicated it all to the party chiefly interested.

Mrs. Dinwiddie quailed a little as she met Anjy's glance; but Barbara rose and threw her arms about the faithful old creature's neck, and, bursting into tears, exclaimed,--

"Oh, Anjy! 't was the act of a devil! I hate him for it!"

"Mind what you say, Barbara!" said Mrs. Dinwiddie.

Barbara withdrew her arms, and, folding them, looked her mother straight in the face and said,--

"My father did not speak too harshly of it. 'T was a foul and cowardly murder."

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Dinwiddie, again threatening a relapse into hysterics.

"My dear, dear Anjy," said Barbara, her tears flowing afresh, "come up to my room, and I will read you your letter."

With a face tearless and inflexible, Anjy allowed herself to be led out of the dining-hall, and up stairs into Barbara's apartment. The two stayed there a couple of hours, heedless of every summons for them to come forth.

II.

At seventeen the process of conversion is apt to be rapid. Barbara lay awake nearly all that night, thinking, praying, and weeping. With her sudden detestation of Pegram mingled the personal consideration that he knew that Tony was the son of her own favorite Anjy,--the friend of her childhood.

"If he had had one spark of true regard for me," thought Barbara, "not to save the whole Southern Confederacy would he have shot the son of Anjy. Pegram is a brutal ruffian, and Slavery has made him that."

Anjy helped on the work of conversion by her anguish and her solemn adjurations. The old woman had picked up arguments, both moral and economical, enough to have posed even Mr. Alexander H. Stephens himself, the philosophical apostle of that new dispensation whose deity was born of the cotton-gin and sired by the devil Avarice.

Barbara rose and breakfasted late that morning. At eleven o'clock she took her music-lesson. Let us leave her for a few minutes, and fly to another part of the city, where, in one of the rooms of the Provost-Marshal's office, the Rebel mail was being examined. Captain Penrose entered, and Detective Wilkins handed him a letter he had just opened. It was addressed to Colonel Pegram, and was signed by Mrs. Daniel Dinwiddie. We will take the liberty of quoting a portion of it.

"I know, my dear Charlie, that you have been obliged to draw
largely on your financial resources in aid of the great
cause of Southern independence, and I am not surprised that
you should find yourself so severely pushed for money. I
sent you five hundred dollars in greenbacks in my last, the
savings of Barbara and myself. I hope to send you as much
more by the next mail. I regret to say that for the last six
months my husband has utterly refused to allow me one cent
for what he calls disloyal purposes. I consequently have to
practise some finesse in getting what I do. The money he
gives us for dresses and for charity is all saved up for
you; and then I manage to make our grocer's and butcher's
bills appear twice as large as they really are, and thus add
to our savings. It is mortifying to have to resort to these
shifts; but when I reflect on what it is all for, I feel
abundantly justified. Mr. Dinwiddie's income the last two
years has been enormous. He is taxed for upwards of a
million. A good part of this, my dear Charlie, shall be
yours as soon as you change the title of friend for the
nearer one of son-in-law. You complain that Barbara wouldn't
engage herself the last time you met. Her refusal was merely
an act of maiden coyness, and only meant, 'I want to be won,
but not too easily.' She sees no young men, and I watch her
closely; for I am resolved that your interests shall be as
well looked after as if you were on the spot."

As Captain Penrose finished reading the letter, Mr. Dinwiddie walked in, and it was handed to him for perusal. That worthy merchant glanced through it rapidly, and a grim smile overspread his features. "We shall see, Madam," he said, folding up the letter, and handing it to Detective Wilkins for filing. Then, turning to the Captain, he remarked,--

"You are from Maine, I believe, Captain Penrose?"

"Yes, Mr. Dinwiddie,--from the very extremity of Yankeedom."

"Well, Captain, I have this morning seen a friend of your father's, who bade me say to you he is in the city for a day or two, and hopes to see you before he leaves."

"To whom do you refer?"