And your ideal of life?"

"To fill the world with flowers, laughter, and music--especially my own
home--and never do a thing I can make my husband do for me! How do you
like it?"

"I think it very sweet," Phil answered soberly.

At noon on the following Friday, the Piedmont _Eagle_ appeared with an
editorial signed by Dr. Cameron, denouncing in the fine language of the
old school the arrest of Ben as "despotism and the usurpation of
authority."

At three o'clock, Captain Gilbert, in command of the troops stationed in
the village, marched a squad of soldiers to the newspaper office. One of
them carried a sledge-hammer. In ten minutes he demolished the office,
heaped the type and their splintered cases on top of the battered press in
the middle of the street, and set fire to the pile.

On the courthouse door he nailed this proclamation:

_To the People of Ulster County_:

The censures of the press, directed against the servants of the
people, may be endured; but the military force in command of this
district are not the servants of the people of South Carolina. WE ARE
YOUR MASTERS. The impertinence of newspaper comment on the military
will not be brooked UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATEVER.

G. C. Gilbert,
Captain in Command.

Not content with this display of power, he determined to make an example
of Dr. Cameron, as the leader of public opinion in the county.

He ordered a squad of his negro troops to arrest him immediately and take
him to Columbia for obstructing the execution of the Reconstruction Acts.
He placed the squad under command of Gus, whom he promoted to be a
corporal, with instructions to wait until the doctor was inside his house,
boldly enter it and arrest him.

When Gus marched his black janizaries into the house, no one was in the
office. Margaret had gone for a ride with Phil, and Ben had strolled with
Elsie to Lover's Leap, unconscious of the excitement in town.

Dr. Cameron himself had heard nothing of it, having just reached home from
a visit to a country patient.

Gus stationed his men at each door, and with another trooper walked
straight into Mrs. Cameron's bedroom, where the doctor was resting on a
lounge.

Had an imp of perdition suddenly sprung through the floor, the master of
the house of Cameron would not have been more enraged or surprised.

A sudden leap, as the