"Oh, this is all a terrible dream! You can--you can protect me as your cousin, should I need any such protection, which I cannot believe. Northern soldiers are not savages. I know it! I know it!" "How can you know it? Have I not seen more of them than you have? I tell you that for the honor of our house I shall and will give you the protection of my name at once. Your uncle and aunt feel as strongly as I do about it, and your happiness will be the only result. We Southern people take no chances in these matters." Overwhelmed, frightened, bewildered, the girl left the room and mournfully climbed to her own apartment. She was too utterly absorbed in her own desperate plight to observe Zany whisking away in the background. CHAPTER VII DANGERS THICKENING Mr. Baron was scarcely less miserable than his ward, yet from wholly different causes. His anxieties concerning her were deep indeed, his very solicitude impelling him toward the plan which he was eager to consummate. He was distracted by fears and forebodings of every kind of evil; he was striving to fortify his mind against the dire misgiving that the Confederacy was in a very bad way, and that a general breaking up might take place. Indeed his mental condition was not far removed from that of a man who dreads lest the hitherto immutable laws of nature are about to end in an inconceivable state of chaos. What would happen if the old order of things passed away and the abominable abolitionists obtained fall control? He felt as if the door of Dante's Inferno might be thrown wide at any moment. There was no elasticity in his nature, enabling him to cope with threatening possibilities; no such firmness and fortitude of soul as he might be required to exercise within the next few hours. To start with, he was wretched and distracted by the breaking up of the methodical monotony of his life and household affairs. Since general wreck and ruin might soon ensue, he had the impulses of those who try to secure and save what is most valuable and to do at once what seems vitally important. Amid all this confusion and excitement of mind his dominant trait of persistence asserted itself. He would continue trying to the last to carry out the cherished schemes and purposes of his life; he would not stultify himself by changing his principles, or even the daily routine of his life, as far as he could help himself. If events over which he had no control hastened action, such action should be in harmony with previous purpose to the extent of his power. The plan, therefore, of marrying his niece immediately to her cousin doubly commended itself to him. It would throw around her additional safeguards and relieve him in part from a heavy responsibility; it would also consummate one of the cherished intentions of his life. Things might take a happy turn for the better, and then just so much would be gained and accomplished.