"Well, you are not in a hurry." I answered.
We were out as usual for a day's pleasure among the mountains,
and Hugh and I were resting on a sunny bank waiting for the
others to come up. We had distanced them.
"What do you think about it?" he said, suddenly drawing
himself up from the grass and looking in my face.
"Men do not rule their course by what women think," - I
answered.
"No, you are wrong; they do! Sometimes they do," - he said. "I
have no mother nor sister to counsel me; only Mrs. Randolph
bids me go home and be a soldier; but I would as lieve take
advice from you. What would you tell me to do - if I were your
brother?"
"I do not tell Ransom anything."
"He is under his mother's tutelage; but I am not. Tell me what
to do, Miss Randolph. I am sure your counsel would be good. Do
you wish me to go and fight the North, as your mother says I
ought?"
"I wish people would not fight at all," I said, with my heart
straitened.
"Of course; but here we are in it, or they are; and it is the
same thing. Don't you think they can get through it without
me? or do you say as your mother, - 'Every one go!' "
He looked at me more earnestly than was pleasant, and I was
greatly at a loss what to answer. It was wisest for me not to
commit myself to a course opposed to my mother's; and yet,
truth is wisest of all. I looked to see Ransom and Mr. De
Saussure, but they were not in sight.
"You are not speaking in jest," I said; "and I have no
business to speak in earnest."
"You never speak any other way," he rejoined. "Tell me your
mind. You are never violent; do you feel as Mrs. Randolph does
about it? Would you like me better if I went heart and soul
into the fray at home?"
"That would depend upon the-views and motives with which you
went into it."
"Well - if I did it for love of you?" he said smiling.
"I cannot imagine that anybody should do such a thing for love
of me. Nothing but the strongest and purest convictions of
duty can justify such a thing as fighting."
"I suppose I know what that means," he said somewhat gloomily.
"No," said I hastily, "I don't think you do."
"What does it mean, then?" he asked.
"Permit me to ask first, Are your convictions strong and
clear, that it is your duty to go home and enter the war for
the South?"
"That's a searching question," he said laughing. "To say yes,
would be to condemn myself at once. To say no, - what would
that do for me with Mrs. Randolph?"