Truth is a fixed star,Aileen aroon."
And, glancing back over her shoulder, caught her breath quickly.
"Celia! What is the matter, dear?"
"Nothing. I don't like such songs—just now——"
"What songs?"
"I don't know, Ailsa; songs about war and castles. Little things plague me. … There's been altogether too much talk about war—it gets into ev'ything, somehow. I can't seem to he'p it, somehow——"
"Why, Celia! You are not worrying?"
"Not fo' myse'f, Honey-bud. Somehow, to-night—I don't know—and
Curt seemed a little anxious."
She laughed with an effort; her natural gaiety returned to buoy her above this indefinable undercurrent of unrest.
Paige and Marye came in from the glass extension where their father was pacing to and fro, smoking his bedtime cigar, and their mother began her invariable running comment concerning the day's events, rallying her children, tenderly tormenting them with their shortcomings—undarned stockings, lessons imperfectly learned, little household tasks neglected—she was always aware of and ready at bedtime to point out every sin of omission.
"As fo' you, Paige, you are certainly a ve'y rare kind of Honey-bird, and I reckon Mr. Ba'num will sho'ly catch you some day fo' his museum. Who ever heard of a shif'less Yankee girl except you and Marye?"
"O mother, how can we mend everything we tear? It's heartless to ask us!"
"You don't have to try to mend _ev'y_thing. Fo' example, there's
Jimmy Lent's heart——"
A quick outbreak of laughter swept them—all except Paige, who flushed furiously over her first school-girl affair.
"That poor Jimmy child came to me about it," continued their mother, "and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I said, 'Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged myse'f fo' times befo' I was fo'teen——'"
Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental matters in the family circle—letting in fresh air and sunshine on what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen.
"It's perfectly absurd," observed Ailsa, "at your age, Paige——"
"Mother was married at sixteen! Weren't you, dearest?"
"I certainly was; but I am a bad rebel and you are good little Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they're twenty odd befo' they do anything ve'y ridiculous."
"We expect to wait," said Paige, with a dignified glance at her sister.
"You've four years to wait, then," laughed Marye.
"What's the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?"
"And you've three years to wait, silly," retorted Paige. "But I don't care; I'd rather wait. It isn't very long, now. Ailsa, why don't you marry again?"
Ailsa's lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in appreciative recitation of what she was reading.
"Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night
To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!"
"Listen, Celia," she said, "this is really beautiful:
A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig's cheeks, but she said nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of Timrod's "Ethnogenesis":
"Now come what may, whose favour need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?"
She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:
"And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since, in the limits of the North,
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God—
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage
Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,
And with a hostile horde profane our sod!"
The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page; then:
"Nor would we shun the battleground!
… The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm,
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Call up the clashing elements around
And test the right and wrong!
On one side creeds that dare to preach
What Christ and Paul refused to teach——"
"Oh!" she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; "Do they believe such things of us in the South, Celia?"
The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig's cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered. She meditated. Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain."
"A nation!"
"Dear, we have always been that—only the No'th has just found it out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need not repeat it."
"But, Celia, the cannon can't! The same flag belongs to us both."
"Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird." There came a subtle ringing sound in Celia Craig's voice; she leaned forward, taking the newspaper from Ailsa's idle fingers:
"Try to be fair," she said in unsteady tones. "God knows I am
