The truth is, a great deal of pressure was brought to bear on Cephas's mother, in one way and another. Meriwether Clopton called on her, bringing Captain Falconer. She was not at all pleased to see the Captain, and she made no effort to conceal her prejudice. "I never did think that I'd speak to a man in that uniform," she said with a very red face. But she was better satisfied when Meriwether Clopton told her that the Captain was the son of his dearest friend, and that he was utterly opposed to the radical policy. The upshot of the matter was that, with many a sigh and some tears, she gave her consent for her onliest, her dearest, and her bestest, to go on the long journey. And then, after consenting, she was angry with herself because she had consented. In short, she was as miserable and as anxious as mother-love can make a woman, and poor Cephas never could understand until he became a grown man, and had children of his own, how his mother could make such a to-do over the opportunity that Providence had thrown in his way. To tell the truth, he was almost irritated at the obstacles and objections that the vivid imagination of his mother kept conjuring up. She said he must be sure not to fall in the ocean, and he must keep out of the way of the railroad trains. She cried silently all the time she was packing his modest supply of clothes in a valise, and put some tea-cakes in one corner, and a little Testament in the other. It is no wonder that children who do not understand such feelings should be impatient of them, and Cephas is to be excused if he watched the whole proceeding with something like contempt for woman's weakness. But he has bitterly regretted, oh, tens of thousands of times, that, instead of standing aloof from his mother's feelings, he did not throw his arms around her, and tell how much he appreciated her love, and how every tear she shed for him was worth to him a hundred times more than a diamond. But Cephas was a boy, and, being a boy, he could not rise superior to his boy's nature. It was arranged that Cephas was to go to Savannah with Captain Falconer, and return with Mr. Sanders, who would take advantage of the occasion to settle up some old business with the firm that had acted as factor for Meriwether Clopton before the war. The arrangement took place when Mr. Sanders returned home after his visit to Cephas's mother, and was of course conditional on her consent, which was not obtained at once.