Let us precede him by a few minutes and look in upon the select company there assembled. In a stately apartment some dozen of the principal Confederate managers sat in conclave. Prominent among them were Ratcliff, and by his side his lawyer, Semmes, an attenuated figure, sharp-faced and eager-eyed. Complacent, but inwardly cursing the Rebellion, sat Robson with his little puffed eyes twinkling through gold-rimmed spectacles, and his fat cheeks indicating good cheer. It was with difficulty he could repress the sarcasms that constantly rose to his lips. Wigman and Sanderson were of the company; and the rest of the members were nearly all earnest Secessionists and gentlemen of position. Ratcliff had communicated his grievances, and it had been decided to send a messenger to bring Winslow before the conclave to answer certain questions as to his disposition of the funds confided to him by the late Mrs. Ratcliff. The messenger having returned once with the information that Winslow was not at home, had been sent a second time with orders to wait for him till ten o’clock. It had been also resolved to summon Charles Kenrick before the conclave, and an officer had been sent to the hotel for that purpose. There was now a discussion as to Vance. Who knew him? No one intimately. Several had a mere bowing acquaintance with him. Ratcliff could not remember that he had ever seen him. Had Vance contributed to the cause? Yes. He had paid a thousand dollars for the relief of the suffering at the hospital. Did anybody know what he was worth? A cotton-broker present knew of his making “thirty thousand dollars clean” in one operation in the winter of 1858. Did he own any real estate in the city? His name was not down in the published list of holders. If he owned any, it was probably held under some other person’s name. Among tax-payers he was rated at only fifty thousand dollars; but he might have an income from property in other places, perhaps at the North, on which he ought to pay his quota in this hour of common danger. It was decided to send to see why Vance did not come; and a third officer was despatched to find him. “Does any one know,” asked Semmes, “whether Captain Onslow has yet got the news of this terrible disaster to his family in Texas?” “The intelligence has but just reached us at head-quarters,” replied Mr. Ferrand, a wealthy Creole. “I hope it will not shake the Captain’s loyalty to the good cause.” “Why should it?” inquired Ratcliff. “He must be a spooney to let it make any difference,” said Sanderson. “Some people are so weak and prejudiced!” replied Robson. “Tell them the good of the institution requires that their whole family should be disembowelled, and they can’t see it. Tell them that though their sister was outraged, yet ’ was in the holy cause of slavery, and it doesn’t satisfy ’em. Such sordid souls, incapable of grand sacrifices, are too common.”