too late to make some sort of amends. I will
wipe 'em on your jaws, sir!"

He sprang forward, but I caught him. "You must be perfectly cool and
perfectly sensible, Mr. Jucklin," I said, as quickly as I could, holding
him. "Remember that he is in your house."

And this quieted him. Even the most pronounced backwoodsman in the South
is sometimes graced with a sudden and almost marvelous courtesy, the
unconscious revival of a long lost dignity; and this came upon the old
man, and, bowing low, he said:

"I humbly beg your pardon, sir."

"And I should be a brute not to grant it," the General replied, bowing
in turn. "But I hope that reason rather than the fact of my being under
your roof will govern your conduct."

During this time, and, indeed, from the moment when the General had
entered the room, Guinea stood beside the rocking-chair in which her
mother was seated; no change had come over her countenance, but with
one hand resting on the back of the chair she had remained motionless,
with the exception that she placed her hand on her mother's head at the
moment when I caught the old man in my arms. I saw this, though her
motion was swift, for I was looking at her rather than at her father.
And now the General turned to the girl.

"My dear," he said. She frowned slightly, but her lips parted with a
cold smile that came out of her heart.

"My dear child, it is hard for me to say this to you, for I feel that
you can but regard me a feelingless monster that would rend an innocent
and loving heart, and God knows that I now beg your forgiveness, but in
this life cruel things must be done, done that those who come after us
may feel no sting of reproach cast by an exacting society. I am an old
man, my dear, and shall soon be taken to the burial ground where my
fathers sleep in honor. They left me a proud name and I must not soil
it. The oldest stone there is above a breast that braved old Cromwell's
pikemen--the noble heart of a cavalier beat in that bosom--and can you
ask----"

"I have asked nothing, General."

"You are a noble young woman."

"But your son will come to me and kneel at my feet."

A flush flew over the General's face. "No, it is with his full consent
that I have come. Indeed, I would have put off my coming until a more
befitting day, but he knew his duty and bade me do mine."

"He will kneel at my feet," she said; and he had not replied when we
heard footsteps in the passage--wild footsteps. There