rite your name in my
register," he said--"the visitors' register? The Government had it
prepared for the throngs who would visit these graves; but with the
exception of the blacks, who can not write, no one has come, and the
register is empty. Will you write your name? Yet do not write it unless
you can think gently of the men who lie there under the grass. I believe
you do think gently of them, else why have you come of your own accord
to stand by the side of their graves?" As he said this, he looked
fixedly at her.

Miss Ward did not answer; but neither did she write.

"Very well," said the keeper; "come away. You will not, I see."

"I can not! Shall I, Bettina Ward, set my name down in black and white
as a visitor to this cemetery, where lie fourteen thousand of the
soldiers who killed my father, my three brothers, my cousins; who
brought desolation upon all our house, and ruin upon all our
neighborhood, all our State, and all our country?--for the South _is_
our country, and not your North. Shall I forget these things? Never!
Sooner let my right hand wither by my side! I was but a child; yet I
remember the tears of my mother, and the grief of all around us. There
was not a house where there was not one dead."

"It is true," answered the keeper; "at the South, all went."

They walked down to the gate together in silence.

"Good-by," said John, holding out his hand; "you will give me yours or
not as you choose, but I will not have it as a favor."

She gave it.

"I hope that life will grow brighter to you as the years pass. May God
bless you!"

He dropped her hand; she turned, and passed through the gateway; then he
sprang after her.

"Nothing can change you," he said; "I know it, I have known it all
along; you are part of your country, part of the time, part of the
bitter hour through which she is passing. Nothing can change you; if it
could, you would not be what you are, and I should not--But you can not
change. Good-by, Bettina, poor little child--good-by. Follow your path
out into the world. Yet do not think, dear, that I have not seen--have
not understood."

He bent and kissed her hand; then he was gone, and she went on alone.

A week later the keeper strolled over toward the old house. It was
twilight, but the new owner was still at work. He was one of those
sandy-haired, energetic Maine men, who, probably on the principle of
extremes, were often found through the South, making new homes for
them