"

The master lifted his hand in warning.

"Take care of yourself now. No more risks. You're not as young as you
once were."

"Thankee, sah."

"Ask Mrs. Lee to bring me the document on my desk. Find Sam and fetch
him here."

Ben bowed.

"Yassah. Right away, sah."

Lee turned to his guest genially.

"I'm going to ask you to witness what I'm about to do, Ruffin. And
you mustn't take offense. We differ about Slavery and politics in the
abstract, but whatever our differences on the surface, you are an old
Virginia planter and I trust we shall always be friends."

The two men clasped hands and Ruffin spoke with deep emotion.

"I am honored in your friendship, Colonel Lee. However I may differ with
you about the Union, we agree on one thing, that the old Dominion is the
noblest state on which the sun has ever shown!"

Lee closed his eyes as if in prayer.

"On that we are one. Old Virginia, the mother of Presidents and of
states, as I leave her soil I humbly pray that God's blessings may ever
rest upon her!"

"So say I, sir," Ruffin responded heartily. "And I'll try to do the
cussin' for her while you do the praying."

Mrs. Lee entered and handed to her husband a folded document, as Ben
came from the kitchen with Sam, who bowed and grinned to every one in
the room.

Lee spoke in low tones to his wife.

"Ask the young people to come in for a moment, my dear."

Mrs. Lee crossed quickly to the library door and called:

"Come in, children, Colonel Lee wishes to see you all."

Mary, Stuart, Custis, Phil, Robbie and Sid pressed into the hall in
curious, expectant mood. Mrs. Marshall knew that Ruffin was still there,
but her curiosity got the better of her aversion. She followed the
children, only to run squarely into Ruffin.

He was about to speak in his politest manner when she stiffened and
passed him.

Ruffin's eye twinkled. He knew that she saw him. She hated him for
his political views. She also knew that he hated her husband, Judge
Marshall, with equal cordiality. His pride was too great to feel the
slightest hurt at her attempt to ignore him. She was a fanatic on the
subject of the Union. All right, he was a fanatic on the idea of an
independent South. They were even. Let it be so.

With a toss of his head, he turned toward Lee who had seated himself at
the table behind the couch.

The children were chatting and laughing as they entered. A sudden hush
fell on them as they caught the serious loo