It is true that there are very many like them in the North, but there are also very many who restrain the men over whom they have influence,--who are indifferent, as you have been, or in sympathy with the South,--or who, as is true in most instances, do not yet see the necessity for self-sacrifice. We have not truly felt the war yet, but it will sooner or later come home to every one who has a heart. I have been in the South, and have studied the spirit of the people. They are just as sincere and conscientious as we are, and more in earnest as yet. Christian love and faith, there, look to Heaven for sanction with absolute sincerity, and mothers send their sons, girls their lovers, and wives their husbands, to die if need be. For the political conspirators who have thought first and always of their ambition I have only detestation, but for the people of the South--for the man I may meet in the ranks and kill if I can--I have profound respect. I should know he was wrong, I should be equally sure that he believed himself right. "Look at the clock, my dear, and see how long I have talked to you. Can you now doubt that you will be companionable to me? Men down town think I am hard as a rock, but your touch of sympathy has been as potent as the stroke of Moses' rod. You have had an inundation of words, and the future is rosy to me with hope because you are not asleep." "Have I shown lack of interest, papa?" "No, Marian, your intent eyes have been eloquent with feeling. Therefore I have spoken so long and fully. You have, as it were, drawn the words from me. You have made this outpouring of my heart seem as natural as breathing, for when you look as you do to-night, I can almost think aloud to you. You have a sympathetic face, my child, and when expressing intelligent sympathy it grows beautiful. It was only pretty before. Prettiness is merely a thing of outline and color; beauty comes from the soul." She came and stood at his side, resting her arm lightly on his shoulder. "Papa," she said, "your words are a revelation to me. Your world is indeed a new one, and a better one than mine. But I must cease to be a girl, and become a woman, to enter it." "You need not be less happy; you do not loset anything. A picture is ever finer for shadows and depth of perspective. You can't get anything very fine, in either art or life, from mere bright surface glare." "I can't go back to that any more; something in my very soul tells me that I cannot; and your loneliness and danger would render even the wish to do so base. No, I feel now that I would rather be a woman, even though it involves a crown of thorns, than to be a shallow creature that my own heart would despise. I may never be either wise or deep, but I shall be to you all I can." "You do very much for me in those words alone, my darling. As I said before, no one can tell what you may become if you develop your own nature naturally." CHAPTER IV. WOMAN'S CHIEF RIGHT.