oh, he looked like death!"

"Who?--William Gilmer?" demanded Uncle Edward with asperity. "Your
pronoun 'he' stands for your antecedent 'Gilmer.' But what's the English
tongue when we have a Jacobin in the house! Women like strange animals,
and they are vastly fond of pitying. But you were always a home body,
Jacqueline, and left Unity to run after the sea lions and learned pigs!
And now you sit there as white as your gown!"

Jacqueline smiled. "Perhaps I am of those who pity. I hear a horse upon
the road! It may be Dr. Gilmer!" and up she started.

"The horse has gone by," said Uncle Edward. "Gilmer cannot possibly be
here for an hour. Sit down, child, and don't waste your pity. The Rands
are used to hard knocks. I've seen old Gideon in the ring, black and
blue and blind with blood, demanding proof that he was beaten. The
gentleman upstairs will take care of himself. Bah!--Where is Ludwell
Cary this afternoon?"

"He rode, I think, to Charlottesville."

"You think! Don't you know?--What woman was ever straightforward!"

Major Churchill opened his book, looked at it, and tossed it aside; took
The Virginia Federalist from the table, and for perhaps sixty seconds
appeared absorbed in its contents, then with a loud "Pshaw!" threw it
down, and rising walked to a bookcase. "I am reading Swift," he said,
and brought a calf-bound volume to the window. "There was a man who knew
hatred and the _risus sardonicus_! Listen to this, Jacqueline."

Major Churchill read well, and it was his habit to read aloud to
Jacqueline, whose habit it was to listen. Now she sat before the window,
in the old leather chair, her slender face and form in profile, and her
eyes upon the sunset sky. It was her accustomed attitude, and Uncle
Edward read on with growing satisfaction, finding that he was upon a
passage which gave Democracy its due. He turned a page, then another,
glanced from the book, and discovered that his niece was not attending.
"Jacqueline!"

Jacqueline withdrew her eyes from the fading gold, and, turning in her
chair, faced her uncle with a faint smile. She loved him dearly, and he
loved her, and they had not many secrets from each other. Now she looked
at him with a wavering light upon her face, shook her head as if in
answer to some dim question of her own, and broke into silent weeping.

"Bless my soul!" cried Uncle Edward, and started up in alarm. He had a
contemptuous horror of women's tears; but Jacqueline was different,