"When this war broke out he came home to see if he might be permitted to fight for his race, and for his and my country. He now wears the same uniform that I do, and he is my superior officer." "It is shameful," broke out Lillie. "It is the will of authority," answered Colburne,--"of authority that I have sworn to respect." "A southern gentleman would resign," said Mrs. Larue. "A northern gentleman keeps his oath and stands by his flag," retorted Colburne. Mrs. Larue paused, suppressed her rising excitement, and with an exterior air of meekness considered the situation. She had gained her battle; she had wounded and punished him; she had probably detached Lillie from him; now she would stop the conflict. "I beg pardon," she said, looking him full in the eyes with a charming little expression of penitence. "I am sorry if I have annoyed you. I thought, I hoped, you might perhaps be obliged to me for hinting to you that these people are not received here in society. You are a stranger, and do not know our prejudices. I pray you to excuse me if I have been officious." Colburne was astonished, disarmed, ashamed, notwithstanding that he had been in the right and was the injured party. "Mrs. Larue, I beg your pardon," he answered. "I have been unnecessarily excited. I sincerely ask you pardon." She accorded it in pleasant words and with the most amiable of smiles. She was a good-natured, graceful little grimalkin, she could be pretty and festive over a mouse while torturing it; so purring and velvet-pawed, indeed, that the mouse himself could not believe her to be in earnest, and prayed to be excused for turning upon her. It is probable that, not being susceptible to keen emotions, she did not know what deep pain she had given the young man by her attack. The advantage which blasé people have over innocents in a fight is awful. They know how to hit, and they don't mind the punishing. It is said that Deaf Burke's physiognomy was so calloused by frequent poundings that he would permit any man to give him a facer for a shilling a crack. Lillie said almost nothing during the conversation, being quite overcome with amazement and anger at Colburne's degradation and at the wrongheadedness, the indelicacy, the fanaticism with which he defended it. When the erring young man left the house she did not give him her hand, after her usual friendly southern fashion. The pride of race, the prejudices of her education, would not permit her to be cordial, at least not in the first moments of offence, with one who felt himself at liberty to go from her parlor to that of an octoroon. How could a Miss Ravenel put herself on a level with a Miss Meurice.