"The suggestion is almost selfish," said the general gallantly. "Well, your nights here are finer than music," Helen remarked, fleeing to an impersonal theme. "To walk in the moonlight, without wraps and with no sense of discomfort, in the middle of December, is a wonderful experience to me. Last night I heard a mocking-bird singing; and my aunt has been asking Mrs. Haley if watermelons are ripe." "The mocking-birds at Waverly," said the general, "have become something of a nuisance under Hallie's management. There is a great flock of them on the place, and in the summer they sing all night. It is not a very pleasant experience to have one whistling at your window the whole night through." "Mrs. Haley," remarked Helen, "says that there are more mocking-birds now than there were before the war, and that they sing louder and more frequently." "I shouldn't wonder," the general assented. "Mrs. Haley is quite an authority on such matters. Everybody quotes her opinions." "I took the liberty the other day," Helen went on, "of asking her about the Ku Klux." "And, pray, what did she say?" the general asked with some degree of curiosity. "Why, she said they were like the shower of stars--she had 'heard tell' of them, but she had never seen them. 'But,' said I, 'you have no doubt that the shower really occurred!'" "Her illustration was somewhat unfortunate," the general remarked. "Oh, by no means," Helen replied. "She looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes, and said she had heard that it wasn't the stars that fell, after all." Talking thus, with long intervals of silence, the two walked along the gleaming road until they reached the tavern, where Miss Eustis found her aunt and Mrs. Haley waiting on the broad veranda. "I don't think he is very polite," said Helen, after her escort had bade them good night, and was out of hearing. "He offered me his arm, and then, after we had walked a little way, suggested that we could get along more comfortably by marching Indian file." Mrs. Haley laughed loudly. "Why, bless your innocent heart, honey! that ain't nothin'. The sand's too deep in the road, and the path's too narrer for folks to be a-gwine along yarm-in-arm. Lord! don't talk about perliteness. That man's manners is somethin' better'n perliteness." "Well," said Helen's aunt, "I can't imagine why he should want to make you trudge through the sand in that style." "It is probably an output of the climate," said Helen.