of an annoying or
irritating nature must be broached to the convalescent just yet.

The Judge confessed that it was an affair over which Mr. Loring had
been deeply chagrined--a clear loss of a large sum of money, and
perhaps it would be safer, under the circumstances, to await Col.
McVeigh's return. Col. McVeigh was equally interested, and neither he
nor the Judge would consent to risk an attack similar to that
experienced by Mr. Loring during the bombardment of Port Royal
entrance. He was at that time on his Beaufort plantation, where the
blue coats overran his place after they landed, and it was known to
have been nothing else than a fit of rage at their victory, and rage
at the planters who fled on all sides of him, which finally ended in
the prostration for which the local physicians could find no remedy.
Then it was that Gertrude took him abroad, with the result described.
It was understood the prostration had taught him one useful lesson--he
no longer cultivated the rages for which he had been locally famous.
As he was unable to stamp and roar, he compromised on sneers and
caustic retorts, from which he appeared to derive an amount of
satisfaction tonical in its effects.

The Judge was giving Delaven the details of the Beaufort affair when
Ben wheeled his master into the room. There was an awkward pause, a
slight embarrassment, but he had caught the words "Port Royal
entrance," and comprehended.

"Huh! Talking over that disaster, Judge?" he remarked. "I tell you
what it is, you can't convey to a foreigner anything of the feeling of
the South over those misfortunes; to have Sherman's tramps go
rough-shod over your lawns and rest themselves with braggadocio at
your tables--the most infernal riff-raff--"

"One moment," interposed the Judge, blandly, with a view to check the
unpleasant reminiscences. "Did I not hear you actually praise one of
those Yankees?--in fact, assert that he was a very fine fellow?"

"Yes, yes; I had forgotten him. A Yankee captain; ordered the
blue-coats to the right-about when he found there was only a sick man
and a girl there; and more than that, so long as those scavengers were
ashore and parading around Beaufort he kept men stationed at my gates
for safeguard duty. A fine fellow, for a Yankee. I can only account
for it by the fact that he was a West Point graduate, and was thus
thrown, to a certain extent, into the society and under the influences
of our own men. Kenneth, Col. McVei