Daisy In The Field

"Cowardly Yankees!" said Ransom.

"That is Preston's favourite word," I remarked. "But I am not

clear that you are not both mistaken."

"You have lived among Yankees, till it has hurt you," said

Ransom.

"Till I have learned to know something about them," I said.

"And is your judgment of the probable issue of the war,

different from that I have expressed, Miss Randolph?" Mr. De

Saussure asked.

"My judgment is not worth much," I said. "I have doubts."

"But you agree with us as to the right of preserving our

independence?" Mr. Marshall said.

"Does independence mean, the governing power? Does every

minority, as such, lose its independence?"

"Yes!" said De Saussure - "if it is to be permanently a

minority."

"That would be our case, you see," Mr. Marshall went on. "Are

we not justified in endeavouring to escape from such a

position?"

I was most unwilling to talk on the subject, but they were all

determined I should. I could not escape.

"It depends," I said, "the settlement of that question, upon

the other question, whether our government is one or twenty."

"It is thirty!" said Ransom.

I had thrown a ball now which they could keep up without me.

To my joy, the whole three became so much engaged in the game,

that I was forgotten. I could afford to forget too; and

quitting the fair lake and the glorious mountain that looked

down upon it, ceasing to hear the eager debate which went on

at my side, my thoughts flew over the water to a uniform and a

sword that were somewhere in that struggle of rights and

wrongs. My heart sank. So far off, and I could not reach him;

so busy against the feelings and prejudices of my friends, and

I could not reconcile them; in danger, and I could not be

near; in trouble, perhaps, and I could not help. It would not

do to think about. I brought my thoughts back, and wondered at

old Mont Pilatte which looked so steadily down on me with the

calm of the ages.