“True enough, as three of my boys have sad reason to know,” Joe replied. And then again must an account of his experiences be given, amid soft ejaculations from the girls and more emphatic ones from the young men. It was not a specially new theme, but one that had not come home to them before, and not a youth that did not walk away toward his home that night with a determination to avenge the outrage at the first opportunity. The next day came the news that war was declared. CHAPTER II. _The Work of a Mob._ Within the week Rhoda Kendall arrived with her father from Boston. As her Cousin Joe had described her, Lettice was not surprised to meet a quiet, reserved girl. By the side of Lettice’s dark hair, pink and white complexion, and deep blue eyes, Rhoda’s coloring seemed very neutral, yet the New England girl was by no means as supine as her appearance would indicate, as Lettice soon found out; for before twenty-four hours were over she was arguing with her new acquaintance in a crisp, decided manner, and was so well-informed, so clever with facts and dates, that Lettice retired from the field sadly worsted, but with the fire of an ambitious resolve kindled within her. “She made me feel about two inches high,” she told her father, “and I appeared a perfect ignoramus. Why don’t I know all those things about politics and history, father?” “Go along, child,” he replied. “Deliver me from a clever woman! Learn to be a good housewife, and be pretty and amiable, and you’ll do.” “No, but I’ll not do,” Lettice persisted. “I am not going to let that Boston girl make me feel as small as a mouse, and I don’t mean to sit as mum as an owl while she entertains the gentlemen with her knowledge of affairs. She’ll be having them all desert our side yet.” Her father laughed. “That’s the way the crow flies, is it? My little lass is like to be jealous, and she’ll have no one stealing her swains from her. I see. Well, my love, what do you want to know?” “I want to know why we shouldn’t have war. When I listen to Rhoda, she fairly persuades me that we would be a blundering, senseless lot, to war with a great nation like England. She has such a big navy, and we have none to speak of, Rhoda says, and she laughs when I say we won’t let ourselves be beaten. We will not, will we, father?” “No, we will _not_,” he emphasized; “and as for our navy, we have not a bad record. Their ships can sail no faster and are no better manned than ours.” “I’d like to see any one manage a vessel better than you or Uncle Tom, and even Brother William or Brother James, and Cousin Tom can do anything with one of our clippers. Why, they are as much at home on the water as on the land.” “To be sure. There are no better seamen anywhere than America can produce, and we can show fight. At all events, daughter, we do not mean to be bullied, and though New England has little mind to help us, we’ll make our fight on righteous grounds of complaint.”