Piedmont, South Carolina, which Elsie and Phil had selected for reasons best known to themselves as the place of retreat for their father, was a favourite summer resort of Charleston people before the war.

Ulster county, of which this village was the capital, bordered on the North Carolina line, lying alongside the ancient shore of York. It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the North of Ireland in the great migrations which gave America three hundred thousand people of Covenanter martyr blood, the largest and most important addition to our population, larger in number than either the Puritans of New England or the so-called Cavaliers of Virginia and Eastern Carolina; and far more important than either, in the growth of American nationality.

To a man they had hated Great Britain. Not a Tory was found among them. The cries of their martyred dead were still ringing in their souls when George III started on his career of oppression. The fiery words of Patrick Henry, their spokesman in the valley of Virginia, 188 had swept the aristocracy of the Old Dominion into rebellion against the King and on into triumphant Democracy. They had made North Carolina the first home of freedom in the New World, issued the first Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg, and lifted the first banner of rebellion against the tyranny of the Crown.

They grew to the soil wherever they stopped, always home lovers and home builders, loyal to their own people, instinctive clan leaders and clan followers. A sturdy, honest, covenant-keeping, God-fearing, fighting people, above all things they hated sham and pretence. They never boasted of their families, though some of them might have quartered the royal arms of Scotland on their shields.

To these sturdy qualities had been added a strain of Huguenot tenderness and vivacity.

The culture of cotton as the sole industry had fixed African slavery as their economic system. With the heritage of the Old World had been blended forces inherent in the earth and air of the new Southland, something of the breath of its unbroken forests, the freedom of its untrod mountains, the temper of its sun, and the sweetness of its tropic perfumes.

When Mrs. Cameron received Elsie’s letter, asking her to secure for them six good rooms at the “Palmetto” hotel, she laughed. The big rambling hostelry had been burned by roving negroes, pigs were wallowing in the sulphur springs, and along its walks, where lovers of olden days had strolled, the cows were browsing on the shrubbery.

But she laughed for a more important reason. They 189 had asked for a six-room cottage if accommodations could not be had in the hotel.

She could put them in the Lenoir place. The cotton crop from their farm had been stolen from the gin—the cotton tax of $200 could not be paid, and a mortgage was about to be foreclosed on both their farm and home. She had been brooding over their troubles in despair. The Stonemans’ coming was a godsend.

Mrs. Cameron was helping them set the house in order to receive the new tenants.

“I declare,” said Mrs. Lenoir gratefully. “It seems too good to be true. Just as I was about to give up—the first time in my life—here came those rich Yankees and with enough rent to pay the interest on the mortgages and our board at the hotel. I’ll teach Margaret to paint, and she can give Marion lessons on the piano. The darkest hour’s just before day. And last week I cried when they told me I must lose the farm.”

“I was heartsick over it for you.”

“You know, the farm was my dowry with the dozen slaves Papa gave us on our wedding-day. The negroes did as they pleased, yet we managed to live and were very happy.”

Marion entered and placed a bouquet of roses on the table, touching them daintily until she stood each flower apart in careless splendour. Their perfume, the girl’s wistful dreamy blue eyes and shy elusive beauty, all seemed a part of the warm sweet air of the June morning. Mrs. Lenoir watched her lovingly.

“Mamma, I’m going to put flowers in every room. I’m 190 sure they haven’t such lovely ones in Washington,” said Marion eagerly, as she skipped out.

The two women moved to the open window, through which came the drone of bees and the distant music of the river falls.

“Marion’s greatest charm,” whispered her mother, “is in her way of doing things easily and gently without a trace of effort. Watch her bend over to get that rose. Did you ever see anything like the grace and symmetry of her figure—she seems a living flower!”

“Jeannie, you’re making an idol of her——”

“Why not? With all our troubles and poverty, I’m rich in her! She’s fifteen years old, her head teeming with romance. You know, I was married at fifteen. There’ll be a half dozen boys to see her to-night in our new home—all of them head over heels in love with her.”

“Oh, Jeannie, you must not be so silly! We should worship God only.”

“Isn’t she God’s message to me and to the world?”

“But if anything should happen to her——”

The young mother laughed. “I never think of it. Some things are fixed. Her happiness and beauty are to me the sign of God’s presence.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re coming to live with us in the heart of town. This place is a cosey nest, just such a one as a poet lover would build here in the edge of these deep woods, but it is too far out for you to be alone. Dr. Cameron has been worrying about you ever since he came home.” 191

“I’m not afraid of the negroes. I don’t know one of them who wouldn’t go out of his way to do me a favour. Old Aleck is the only rascal I know among them, and he’s too busy with politics now even to steal a chicken.”

“And Gus, the young scamp we used to own; you haven’t forgotten him? He is back here, a member of the company of negro troops, and parades before the house every day to show off his uniform. Dr. Cameron told him yesterday he’d thrash him if he caught him hanging around the place again. He frightened Margaret nearly to death when she went to the barn to feed her horse.”

“I’ve never known the meaning of fear. We used to roam the woods and fields together all hours of the day and night: my lover, Marion, and I. This panic seems absurd to me.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to get you two children under my wing. I was afraid I’d find you in tears over moving from your nest.”

“No, where Marion is I’m at home, and I’ll feel I’ve a mother when I get with you.”

“Will you come to the hotel before they arrive?”

“No; I’ll welcome and tell them how glad I am they have brought me good luck.”

“I’m delighted, Jeannie. I wished you to do this, but I couldn’t ask it. I can never do enough for this old man’s daughter. We must make their stay happy. They say he’s a terrible old Radical politician, but I suppose he’s no meaner than the others. He’s very ill, and she loves him devotedly. He is coming here to find health, 192 and not to insult us. Besides, he was kind to me. He wrote a letter to the President. Nothing that I have will be too good for him or for his. It’s very brave and sweet of you to stay and meet them.”

“I’m doing it to please Marion. She suggested it last night, sitting out on the porch in the twilight. She slipped her arm around me and said:

“‘Mamma, we must welcome them and make them feel at home. He is very ill. They will be tired and homesick. Suppose it were you and I, and we were taking my Papa to a strange place.’”

When the Stonemans arrived, the old man was too ill and nervous from the fatigue of the long journey to notice his surroundings or to be conscious of the restful beauty of the cottage into which they carried him. His room looked out over the valley of the river for miles, and the glimpse he got of its broad fertile acres only confirmed his ideas of the “slaveholding oligarchy” it was his life-purpose to crush. Over the mantel hung a steel engraving of Calhoun. He fell asleep with his deep, sunken eyes resting on it and a cynical smile playing about his grim mouth.

Margaret and Mrs. Cameron had met the Stonemans and their physician at the train, and taken Elsie and her father in the old weather-beaten family carriage to the Lenoir cottage, apologising for Ben’s absence.

“He has gone to Nashville on some important legal business, and the doctor is ailing, but as the head of the clan Cameron he told me to welcome your father to the 193 hospitality of the county, and beg him to let us know if he could be of help.”

The old man, who sat in a stupor of exhaustion, made no response, and Elsie hastened to say:

“We appreciate your kindness more than I can tell you, Mrs. Cameron. I trust father will be better in a day or two, when he will thank you. The trip has been more than he could bear.”

“I am expecting Ben home this week,” the mother whispered. “I need not tell you that he will be delighted at your coming.”

Elsie smiled and blushed.

“And I’ll expect Captain Stoneman to see me very soon,” said Margaret softly. “You will not forget to tell him for me?”

“He’s a very retiring young man,” said Elsie, “and pretends to be busy about our baggage just now. I’m sure he will find the way.”

Elsie fell in love at sight with Marion and her mother. Their easy genial manners, the genuineness of their welcome, and the simple kindness with which they sought to make her feel at home put her heart into a warm glow.

Mrs. Lenoir explained the conveniences of the place and apologized for its defects, the results of the war.

“I am sorry about the window curtains—we have used them all for dresses. Marion is a genius with a needle, and we took the last pair out of the parlour to make a dress for a birthday party. The year before, we used the ones in my room for a costume at a starvation 194 party in a benefit for our rector—you know we’re Episcopalians—strayed up here for our health from Charleston among these good Scotch Presbyterians.”

“We will soon place curtains at the windows,” said Elsie cheerfully.

“The carpets were sent to the soldiers for blankets during the war. It was all we could do for our poor boys, except to cut my hair and sell it. You see my hair hasn’t grown out yet. I sent it to Richmond the last year of the war. I felt I must do something when my neighbours were giving so much. You know Mrs. Cameron lost four boys.”

“I prefer the floors bare,” Elsie replied. “We will get a few rugs.”

She looked at the girlish hair hanging in ringlets about Mrs. Lenoir’s handsome face, smiled pathetically, and asked:

“Did you really make such sacrifices for your cause?”

“Yes, indeed. I was glad when the war was ended for some things. We certainly needed a few pins, needles, and buttons, to say nothing of a cup of coffee or tea.”

“I trust you will never lack for anything again,” said Elsie kindly.

“You will bring us good luck,” Mrs. Lenoir responded. “Your coming is so fortunate. The cotton tax Congress levied was so heavy this year we were going to lose everything. Such a tax when we are all about to starve! Dr. Cameron says it was an act of stupid vengeance on the South, and that no other farmers in America have their crops taxed by the National Government. I am so 195 glad your father has come. He is not hunting for an office. He can help us, maybe.”

“I am sure he will,” answered Elsie thoughtfully.

Marion ran up the steps lightly, her hair dishevelled and face flushed.

“Now, Mamma, it’s almost sundown; you get ready to go. I want her awhile to show her about my things.”

She took Elsie shyly by the hand and led her into the lawn, while her mother paid a visit to each room, and made up the last bundle of odds and ends she meant to carry to the hotel.

“I hope you will love the place as we do,” said the girl simply.

“I think it very beautiful and restful,” Elsie replied. “This wilderness of flowers looks like fairyland. You have roses running on the porch around the whole............