, to
Grandmother Tilghman's slight indignation, Rhoda called the rector
"William," and he answered her, "Dear Rhoda."

The triple widow, however, had one lane to her consideration, up which
the artful Rhoda strayed as soon as she saw the gate ajar.

"Misc Tilghman," she said one day, "I been a-lookin' at you. I 'spect
you was a real beauty. If you wasn't a little quar, nobody would see you
was a ole woman now."

"I was a belle," spoke the blind old lady, emphatically. "General John
Eager Howard said he would rather talk with me than hear an oration from
Fisher Ames. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, proposed to me when I was
old enough to be your grandmother, and after Susan Decatur, the
commodore's widow, had tried in vain to get an offer from him. Said I,
'Carroll, is this another Declaration of Independence? No,' said I,
'Carroll, I won't reduce the last signer, it may be, to obedience on a
wife going blind. That would be worse slavery than George the Third's!'
He said I was a Spartan widow."

"Every widow I ever see was a sparkin' widow," Rhoda naively concluded,
at which Mrs. Tilghman had to join in the laughter, and there was no
evil feeling.

Jack Wonnell now held the temporary post of cook and woodchopper at
Teackle Hall, and Roxy saw him every day, sewed his tattered clothing
up, put the germs of self-respect in him, and caused Vesta to say to her
husband, as they were sitting in his storehouse parlor one afternoon, in
the intermission of his chill and sweat:

"Such rapid changes have taken place here, Mr. Milburn, that they have
disturbed my judgment, and now I hardly know whether my oldest prejudice
is assured, as I see that white man the happy domestic servant of my
pure slave girl. She seems to have no greater affection than pity and
interest for him, while he is made more of a man by his undisguised
devotion to her. No man could work better than he does now."

"Love is so great, so occult," the husband said, his brown eyes
searching his wife's face over, "that its combinations have centuries
left to run before they shall beat every prejudice down, and prove, in
spite of sin and dispersion, that of one blood are all the nations
made."[4]

CHAPTER XXIX.

BEGINNING OF THE RAID.

The raid into Delaware was all organized when Levin and Hulda were
driven to Johnson's tavern, and the arrival of Van Dorn called forth
cheers and yells, as that blushing worthy threw his trim, athletic
figure out