"Can anything ever make it up to you, Major?" asked David softly. As he

spoke he refilled the major's pipe and handed it to him, not appearing to

notice how the lean old hand shook.

"You do, sir," answered the major with a spark coming back into his eyes,

"you and your gladness and the boy and his--sadness--and Phoebe most of

all. But don't let me keep you from your hen-roost defense--I agree with

you that a hen farm will be the cheapest course for you to take with old

Cross. Give him my respects, and good-by to you." The major's dismissal

was gallant, and David went his way with sympathy and admiration in his

gay heart for the old fire-eater whose ashes had been so stirred.

The major resumed his contemplation of the fire. Hearty burning logs make

good companions for a philosopher like the major, and such times when his

depths were troubled he was wont to trust to them for companionship.

But into any mood of absorption, no matter how deep, the major was always

ready to welcome Mrs. Matilda, and his expectations on the subject of her

adventures had been fully realized. As usual she had begun her tale in

the exact center of the adventure with full liberty left herself to work

back to the beginning or forward to the close.

"And the mystery of it all, Matilda, is the mystery of love--warm,

contradictory, cruel, human love that the Almighty puts in the heart of a

man to draw the unreasoning heart of a woman; sometimes to bruise and

crush it, seldom to kill it outright. Mary Caroline only followed her

call," answered the major, responding to her random lead patiently.

"I know, Major; yes, I know," answered his wife as she laid her hand on

the arm of his chair. "Mary Caroline struggled against it but it was

stronger than she was. It wasn't the loving and marrying a man who had

been on the other side--so many girls did marry Union officers as soon as

they could come back down to get them--but the _kind_ of enemy he was!"

"Yes," said the major thoughtfully, "it would take a wider garment of

love to cover a man with a carpetbag in his hand than a soldier in a

Yankee uniform. A conqueror who looked around as he was fighting and then

came back to trade on the necessities of the conquered cuts but a sorry

figure, Matilda, but a sorry figure!"

"And Mary Caroline felt it too, Major--but she couldn't help it,"

said Mrs. Buchanan with a catch in her voice. "The night before she

ran away to marry him she spent with me, for you were away across the

river, and all night we talked. She told me--not that she was going--but

how she cared. She said it bitterly over and over, 'Peters Brown, the

carpetbagger--and I love him!' I tried to comfort her as best I could

but it was useless. He was a thief to steal her--just a child!" There was

a bitterness and contempt in Mrs. Matilda's usually tender voice. She

sat up very straight and there was a sparkle in her bright eyes.




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