General Garwood made himself exceedingly agreeable. He pointed out the interesting places along the road, gave the ladies little bits of local history that were at least entertaining. In Atlanta, where there was a delay of a few hours, he drove them over the battle-fields, and by his graphic descriptions gave them a new idea of the heat and fury of war. In short, he made himself so agreeable in every way that Miss Tewksbury felt at liberty to challenge his opinions on various subjects. They had numberless little controversies about the rights and wrongs of the war, and the perplexing problems that grew out of its results. So far as Miss Tewksbury was concerned, she found General Garwood's large tolerance somewhat irritating, for it left her no excuse for the employment of her most effective arguments. "Did you surrender your prejudices at Appomattox?" Miss Tewksbury asked him on one occasion. "Oh, by no means; you remember we were allowed to retain our side-arms and our saddle-horses," he replied, laughing. "I still have my prejudices, but I trust they are more important than those I entertained in my youth. Certainly they are less uncomfortable." "Well," said Miss Tewksbury, "you are still unrepentant, and that is more serious than any number of prejudices." "There is nothing to repent of," said the general, smiling, a little sadly as Helen thought. "It has all passed away utterly. The best we can do is that which seems right and just and necessary. My duty was as plain to me in 1861, when I was a boy of twenty, as it is to-day. It seemed to be my duty then to serve my State and section; my duty now seems to be to help good people everywhere to restore the Union, and to heal the wounds of the war." "I'm _very_ glad to hear you say so," exclaimed Miss Tewksbury in a tone that made Helen shiver. "I was afraid it was quite otherwise. It seems to me, that, if I lived here, I should either hate the people who conquered me, or else the sin of slavery would weigh heavily on my conscience." "I can appreciate that feeling, I think," said General Garwood, "but the American conscience is a very healthy one--not likely to succumb to influences that are mainly malarial in their nature; and even from your point of view some good can be found in American slavery." "I have never found it," said Miss Tewksbury. "You must admit that but for slavery the negroes who are here would be savages in Africa. As it is, they have had the benefit of more than two hundred years' contact with the white race. If they are at all fitted for citizenship, the result is due to the civilizing influence of slavery. It seems to me that they are vastly better off as American citizens, even though they have endured the discipline of slavery, than they would be as savages in Africa." Miss Tewksbury's eyes snapped. "Did this make slavery right?" she asked.