Yes, these wild shores were States--States of the great Union, the world's hope; Jackson's, Clay's, Webster's Union, which "must and shall be preserved," "now and forever, one and inseparable." Somewhere between these shores, moreover, and not behind but away on up-stream, probably, Mr. Watson said, in Dead Man's Bend, was, once more, the _Antelope_. In the long wait at Bayou Sara, where Hugh and the outlandish Otto--who could speak French--had found the priest while the commodore and the mate were getting the doctor, the _Antelope_ had reappeared, swept up, and foamed by, and now was so far ahead that in hardly less than another hundred and sixty miles could she be again overtaken. But to Ramsey, even without the _Antelope_ or any or all of the sights and facts of landscape and history, no moment could go stale while the tale of Phyllis and the _Quakeress_ waited like funds in a bank, and while the commodore, the captain, and Hugh, the pilots, the mate, the Gilmores, the judge, general, bishop, squire, senator, Otto Marburg in his green coat, and dozens and scores of others were all over the boat, each more and more a story, a study, as hourly she grew older. On the bench close behind her in the pilot-house a lady with needlework, a gentleman with _De Bow's Review_ (the squire's sister and brother-in-law), had begun to talk with the Gilmores and presently mentioned the twins, speaking in such a tone of doom as to give Ramsey a sudden panic. "It's fine!" said the husband, praising Julian's devotion to his stricken brother. "And they are fine. Their faults--which you've had occasion to discover, sir--are spots on the sun; the faults, madam, of all our young Southern gentlemen----" "Would you say of all?" asked the actor's wife. "No!" said the other lady, "no, not of all!" and her husband was glad to stand corrected. "No," he admitted, "but still of almost all; faults of which we may almost say, sir, that we may almost be proud!" "Oh, well," begged his wife, "please almost don't say it! They're the faults of our 'peculiar institution' and I wish our 'peculiar institution' were--" She sewed hard. "In the deep bosom of the ocean buried," suggested her husband to the players. "Why, honestly, so do I. But it's not, and can't be, and as long as it can't be we----" "Oh, well," said his wife, "don't let's begin on that." Reckless of institutions Ramsey turned. "Is my brother worse?" she broke in, but a white-jacket entered with the dinner-bell and spoke softly to old Joy. "Yes," said Ramsey to him, "I'm Miss Hayle. What is it? Is my brother worse?" "Miss Hayle, Mr. Hugh Co'teney make his comp'ments----" Ramsey laughed in relief. "Yass'm, an' say' cap'm cayn' come to de table an' yo' ma she cayn't come----" "I know she can't. Is my brother----?" "And de commodo' he at de gemp'men's table, an' so he, Mr. Hugh, he 'p'inted to de ladies' table, an' will you please fo' to set in de place o' yo' ma?"