nd do you attend to
the complications."

Carlisle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's beautiful; it may be
wise, but it's impossible. It would take a king's credit."

"At least we might begin with such funds as are already at hand,"
smiled the Countess St. Auban. "It might be difficult? I suppose
the building of the pyramids was difficult. Yet they were begun.
Yet they are finished. Yet they stand, complete, to-day."

"It is hardly for me to advise in a case so grave as that," said
Carlisle. "I should not undertake it. Have you really
considered?"

"I have often followed over the same old course of reasoning, South
against North," she said, smiling at him. "Come now, a
revolutionist and two abolitionists should do much. You still can
fight, though they have taken away your sword."

"Some say that the courts will settle these mooted points,"
Carlisle went on; "others, that Congress must do so. Yet others
are unwilling that even the courts should take it up, and insist
that the Constitution is clear and explicit already. These
Southerners say that Congress should make an end to it, by
specifically declaring that men have a right to take into any new
country what they lawfully own--that is to say, these slaves;
because that territory was bought in common by North and South.
The South is just as honest and sincere as the North is, and to be
fair about it, I don't believe it's right to claim that the South
wants the Union destroyed. A few hotheads talk of that in South
Carolina, in Mississippi, but that is precisely what the sober
judgment of the South doesn't desire. Let us match those
secessionists against the abolitionists," he grinned. "The first
think they have law back of them. The latter know they have none!"

"No," she said, "only the higher law, that of human democracy.
No,--we've nothing concrete--except Lily!"

"Yes, but let me argue you out of this, Countess. Really, I can
see no just reason why the proud and prosperous North should wish
to destroy the proud and prosperous South. If the South remains in
the Union it must be considered a part of the Union. New England
did not believe in taxation without representation. Ought it to
enforce that doctrine on the South?"

"You argue it very well, Sir, as well as any one can. The only
trouble is that you are not convinced, and you do not convince.
You are trying to protect me, that's all. I have no answer--except
Lily! There are some