e, her hands clasped,
her whole face and manner uplifted, as if, indeed, on her likewise the
prophet's mantle had dropped from a chariot of fire.

"As to Calhoun--he is God-fearing," she continued, fervently. "In the
solitudes of a spiritual Mount Sinai, he has received the tablets of the
Lord, and bends every energy to their fulfillment. He, too,
foresees--not with an eye like Clay's, clear only at intervals--and
clouded by vanity, ambition, and sophistry, at other seasons--he, too,
foresees the coming of our doom! His clear vision embraces anarchy,
dissension, civil war, with all its attendant horrors, as the
consequence of man's injustice; and, like Moses, he beholds the promised
land into which he can never enter! Would that it were given to him to
appoint his Joshua, or even to see him face to face, recognizingly! But
this is not God's will. He lurks among the shadows yet--this Joshua of
the South, but God shall yet search him out and bring him visibly before
the people! Not while I live," she added, solemnly, "but within the
natural lives of all others who sit this day around my table!"

"She is equal to Madame Le Normand!" said Major Favraud, aside, nodding
approvingly at me.

"If one waits long enough, most prophecies may be fulfilled," I
ventured; "but, madame, your words point to results too terrible--too
unnatural, it seems to me, ever to be realized in these enlightened
times or in this land of moderation."

"Child," she responded, "blood asserts itself to the end of races. There
are two separate civilizations in this land, destined some day to come
in fearful conflict; and the wars of Scylla, of the Jews themselves,
shall be outdone in the horror and persistence of that strife of
partners--I will not say brothers--for there is no brotherhood of blood
between South and North, of which Clay and Calhoun stand forth to my
mind as distinct types. No union of the red and white roses possible."

"But you forget, madame, that Mr. Clay is a Western man, a Virginian, a
Kentuckian, and the representative of slave-holders," I remonstrated.
"His interests are coincident with those of the South. His hope of the
presidency itself vests in his constituents, and the wand would be
broken in his hand were he to lend himself to partiality of any kind.
Mr. Clay is a great patriot, I believe, Jacksonite though I am--he knows
no South nor North, nor East nor West, but the Union alone, solid and
undivided."

"All this is tr