eroic," I answered, with some vexation at his lightness. "If you
can not see it, I am sorry for you. I like large things; and I know of
nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on."

"You to stand up for him!" Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
scarcely look at me. "You to talk large of him, my Lady Castlewood,
while you are doing of his heart into small wittles! Well, I did
believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward one."

"And what am I doing that is crooked now?"

"Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when
squared up."

"Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is
there to square up?"

He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his
main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, "Soup's
a-bilin now."

"Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I
only want to do the right!"

"I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy
would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady--why, they take
another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But none
of 'em have any much of that to spare."

"Your view is a narrow one," I replied, knowing how that would astonish
him. "You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad
want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it."

The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about
for his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a "female" from a
larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.

"Yes," I continued, with some enjoyment, "let us try to look largely
at all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the
proper and the lofty course to take?"

He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three words
discomfited me--"Pop the question."

Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind
with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that her
privilege could be driven to this extent. But I shook my head till all
my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of voting by color
was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the timid benefit of ballot.

With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double effect
by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of acting up to
such directions, there could be no possible harm in reviewing such a