"Then, in a certain sense, it was I who brought you home, Mr. Graham," said Grace. "I had just returned from a call on Mrs. Mayburn, and I made Warren open the letter and add the postscript. I assure you we were exceedingly anxious about her for weeks." "And from what she has told me I am almost convinced that she owes her life more to you than to her physician. Drugs go but a little way, especially at her time of life; but the delicacies and nourishing food you saw she was provided with so regularly rallied her strength. Yes; it was your postscript that led to my immediate return, and not Hilland's political blast." "Why, Graham! Don't you realize what's going on here?" "Not very seriously." "You may have to fight, old fellow." "I've no objections after I have decided which side to take." "Good heavens, Graham! you will be mobbed if you talk that way here in New England. This comes of a man's living abroad so much that he loses all love for his native land." "Squabbling politicians are not one's native land. I am not a hater of slavery as you are; and if it produces types of men and women like that Southern lady of whom I told you, it must be an excellent institution." "Oh, yes," cried Hilland laughing. "By the way, Grace, my cool, cynical friend was once madly in love--at first sight, too--and with a lady old enough to be his mother. I never heard a woman's character sketched more tenderly; and his climax was that your mother must have closely resembled her." "Mr. Graham is right," said the major impressively. "The South produces the finest women in the world; and when the North comes to meet its men, as I fear it must, it will find they are their mothers' sons." "Poor Warren!" cried Grace; "here are all three of us against you--all pro-slavery and Southern in our sympathies." "I admit at once that the South has produced THE finest woman in the world," said Hilland, taking his wife's hand. "But I must add that many of her present productions are not at all to my taste; nor will they be to yours, Graham, after you have been here long enough to understand what is going on--that is, if anything at home can enlist your interest."