wait and wait while
men dispose of our fates."

In February the Confederacy of the South was organising, and in March of
1861 Mr. Lincoln was President. Penhallow groaned over Cameron as
Secretary of War, smiled approval of the Cabinet with Seward and Chase
and anxiously waited to see what Lincoln would do.

Events followed fast in those eventful days. On the thirteenth of April
Ann Penhallow sat in the spring sunshine on the porch, while Leila read
aloud to her with entranced attention "The Marble Faun." The advent of an
early spring in the uplands was to be seen in the ruddy colour of the
maples. Bees were busy among the young flowers. There was noiseless peace
in the moveless infant foliage.

"How still it is!" said Leila looking up from the book. They were far
from the madding crowd. "What is it, Billy?"

He was red, breathless, excited, and suddenly broke out in his thin
boy-like voice, "Hurrah! They've fired on the flag."

"Who--what flag?"

"Don't know." He had no least idea of what his words meant. "Don't know,"
and crying "Hurrah! They've fired on the flag," fled away.

Ann said, "Go to the village and find out what that idiot meant."

In a half hour Leila came back. "Well, what is it?"

"The Charleston troops have fired on Fort Sumter--My God! Aunt Ann--on
the flag--our flag!"

Ann rose, gathered up her work, hesitated a moment, and saying, "That is
bad news, indeed," went into the house.

Leila sat down on the step of the porch and broke into a passion of
tears, as James Penhallow coming through the woods dismounted at her
side. "What is the matter, my dear child?"

"They have fired on the flag at Sumter--it is an insult!"

"Yes, my child, that--and much more. A blunder too! Mr. Lincoln should
thank God to-day. He will have with him now the North as one man. Colonel
Anderson must surrender; he will be helpless. Alas for his wife, a
Georgia woman!--and my Ann, my dear Ann."

There are few alive to-day who recall the effect caused in the States of
the North by what thousands of men and women, rich and poor, felt to be
an insult, and for the hour, far more to them than the material
consequences which were to follow.

When Rivers saw the working people of the little town passionately
enraged, the women in tears, he read in this outbreak of a class not
given to sentimental emotion what was felt when the fatal news came home
to lonely farms or great cities over all the North and West.

Memorable