oud above the music rang Sam's
voice:

"Honors to yo' pardners!"

With graceful courtesies and stately bows the dance began. And over all
a glad negro called the numbers:

"Forward Fours!"

The caller's eyes rolled and his body swayed with the rhythm of
the dance as he watched each set with growing pride. They danced a
quadrille, a mazurka, another quadrille, a schottische, the lancers,
another quadrille, and another and another. They paused for supper at
midnight and then danced them over again.

While the fine young forms swayed to exquisite rhythm and the music
floated over all, the earnest young Congressman bent close to his host
in a corner of the library.

"I sincerely hope, Colonel Lee, that you can see your way clear to make
a reply to this book of Mrs. Stowe which Ruffin has sent you."

"I can't see it yet, Mr. Pryor--"

"Ruffin is a terrible old fire-eater, I know," the Congressman admitted.
"But _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is the most serious blow the South has received
from the Abolitionists. And what makes it so difficult is that its
appeal is not to reason. It is to sentiment. To the elemental emotions
of the mob. No matter whether its picture is true or false, the result
will be the same unless the minds who read it can be cured of its
poison. It has become a sensation. Every Northern Congressman has read
it. A half million copies have been printed and the presses can't keep
up with the demands. This book is storing powder in the souls of the
masses who don't know how to think, because they've never been trained
to think. This explosive emotion is the preparation for fanaticism. We
only wait the coming of the fanatic--the madman who may lift a torch
and hurl it into this magazine. The South is asleep. And when we don't
sleep, we dance. There's no use fooling ourselves. We're dancing on the
crust of a volcano."

Pryor rose.

"I've a number with Mrs. Pryor. I wish you'd think it over, Colonel.
This message is my big reason for missing a night session to be here."

Lee nodded and strolled out on the lawn before the white pillars of the
portico to consider the annoying request. He hated controversy.

Yet he was not the type of man to run from danger. The breed of men from
which he sprang had always faced the enemy when the challenge came.
In the carriage of his body there was a quiet pride--a feeling not of
vanity, but of instinctive power. It was born in him through generations
of men who had done th