"Oh, these abolitionists! these negar worshippers!" laughed Mrs. Larue, when the social heretic had taken himself away. "Are they not horrible, these New England isms? He will be joining the voodoos next. I foresee that you will have rivals, Mees Lillie. I fear that Mademoiselle Meurice will carry the day. You are under the disadvantage of being white. Et puis tu n'est pas descendue d'une race bâtarde. Quel malheur! Je ne dirais rien s'il entretenait son octaronne a lui. Voilà qui est permis, bien que ce n'est pas joli." "Mrs. Larue, I wish you wouldn't talk to me in that way;--I don't like to hear it," said Lillie, in high anger. "Mais c'est mieux an moins que de les épouser, les octaronnes," persisted Madame. Miss Ravenel rose and went to her own house and room without answering. Since her father fled from New Orleans, openly espousing the cause of the North against the South, she had not been so vexed, so hurt, as she was by this vulgar conduct of her friend, Captain Colburne. Although it cannot be said that she had even begun to love him, she certainly did like him better than any other man that she ever knew, excepting her father and Colonel Carter. She had thought, also, that he liked her too well to do anything which would be sure to meet her disapprobation; and her womanly pride was exceedingly hurt in that her friendship had been risked for the sake of communion with a race of pariahs. There is little doubt that Colburne now had small chance with Miss Ravenel. He guessed as much, and the thought cut him even more deeply that he could have imagined; but he was too chivalrous to be false to his education, to his principles, to himself, though it were to gain the heart of the only woman whom he had ever loved. In fact, so fastidious was his sense of honor that he had disdained to fortify himself against Mrs. Larue's attack by stating, as he might have done truthfully, that at one of these Meurice dinners he had sat by the side of Colonel Carter. I consider it worth while to mention here that Colburne committed a great mistake about this time in declining a regiment which the eldest Meurice offered to raise for him, providing he would apply for the colonelcy. But it was not for fear of Mrs. Larue nor yet of Miss Ravenel that he declined the proffer. He took the proposition into serious consideration and referred it to Carter, who advised him against it. Public opinion on this subject had not yet become so overpoweringly luminous that the old regular, the West Point Brahmin, could see the negro in a military light.