pite of his little weakness."

But in the end the live question would rear its head and come hissing from
among the quiet graves; and Dick Wythe, who loved his fight, or Plaintain
Dudley, in his ruffled shirt, would fall back suddenly to make way for the
wrangling figures of the slaveholder and the abolitionist.

"I can't help it, Betty, I can't help it," the Governor would declare, when
he came back from following the old gentleman to the drive; "did you see
Mr. Yancey step out of Dick Wythe's dry bones to-day? Poor Dick, an honest
fellow who loved no man's quarrel but his own; it's too bad, I declare it's
too bad." And the next day he would send Betty over to Chericoke to stroke
down the Major's temper. "Slippery are the paths of the peacemaker," the
girl laughed one morning, when she had ridden home after an hour of
persuasion. "I go on tip-toe because of your indiscretions, papa. You
really must learn to control yourself, the Major says."

"Control myself!" repeated the Governor, laughing, though he looked a
little vexed. "If I hadn't the control of a stoic, daughter, to say nothing
of the patience of Job, do you think I'd be able to listen calmly to his
tirades? Why, he wants to pull the Government to pieces for his pleasure,"
then he pinched her cheek and added, smiling, "Oh, you sly puss, why don't
you play your pranks upon one of your own age?"

Through the long winter many visits were exchanged between Uplands and
Chericoke, and once, on a mild February morning, Mrs. Lightfoot drove over
in her old coach, with her knitting and her handmaid Mitty, to spend the
day. She took Betty back with her, and the girl stayed a week in the queer
old house, where the elm boughs tapped upon her window as she slept, and
the shadows on the crooked staircase frightened her when she went up and
down at night. It seemed to her that the presence of Jane Lightfoot still
haunted the home that she had left. When the snow fell on the roof and the
wind beat against the panes, she would open her door and look out into the
long dim halls, as if she half expected to see a girlish figure in a muslin
gown steal softly to the stair.

Dan was less with her in that stormy week than was the memory of his
mother; even Great-aunt Emmeline, whose motto was written on the ivied
glass, grew faint beside the outcast daughter of whom but one pale
miniature remained. Before Betty went back to Uplands she had grown to know
Jane Lightfoot as she knew h