y-coated part of the assembly. The "hop" was over. We went home in
the warm moonlight, I thinking that I had had a very nice time, and
glad that Mr. Thorold was coming to take me to walk to-morrow.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOPS.

The afternoon was very sultry; however, Mr. Thorold came, and we went
for our walk. It was so sultry we went very leisurely and also met few
people; and instead of looking very carefully at the beauties of
nature and art we had come to see, we got into a great talk as we
strolled along; indeed, sometimes we stopped and sat down to talk. Mr.
Thorold told me about himself, or rather, about his home in Vermont
and his old life there. He had no mother, and no brothers nor sisters;
only his father. And he described to me the hills of his native
country, and the farm his father cultivated, and the people, and the
life on the mountains. Strong and free and fresh and independent and
intelligent--that was the impression his talk made upon me, of the
country and people and life alike. Sometimes my thoughts took a
private turn of their own, branching off.

"Mr. Thorold," said I, "do you know Mr. Davis of Mississippi?"

"Davis? No, I don't know him," he said shortly.

"You have seen him?"

"Yes, I have seen him often enough; and his wife, too."

"Do you like his looks?"

"I do not."

"He looks to me like a bad man--" I said slowly. I said it to Mr.
Thorold; I would hardly have made the remark to another at West Point.

"He is about bad business--" was my companion's answer. "And yet I do
not know what he is about; but I distrust the man."

"Mr. Thorold," said I, beginning cautiously, "do you want to have
slavery go into the territories?"

"No!" said he. "Do you?"

"No. What do you think would happen if a Northern President should be
elected in the fall?"

"Then slavery would _not_ go into the territories," he said, looking a
little surprised at me. "The question would be settled."

"But do you know some people say--some people at the South say--that
if a Northern President is elected, the Southern States will not
submit to him?"

"Some people talk a great deal of nonsense," said Mr. Thorold. "How
could they help submitting?"

"They say--it is said--that they would break off from the North and
set up for themselves. It is not foolish people that say it, Mr.
Thorold."

"Will you pardon me, Miss Randolph, but I think they would be very
foolish people that would do it."

"Oh, I think