The great fire on the hearth--honest, crackling logs to feed it, since the General would tolerate no less--set the room in a bloom of light that came close to marking the candle that burned at his elbow a profligacy. He had lifted himself from the sofa where Augustus and I placed him, and was seated before a little table. On it, propped against the _Vicar of Wakefield_, a book whereof he never tired, stood a miniature of his wife. Throughout the day he wore this little painting beneath his garments and hung about his neck by a black cord. His wife had given it him in the old days and when their love was new. Each night, when folk pray and con the Bible, he would have this picture before him; and with it her hymn-book to read her favorite songs. This was his devotion--his worship; it was as though he communed with her, his Saint Rachel, on the work of the day and its duties. To the time of his death he did this; and for whatever was good of his performing he would lay it to these conferences, sweet at once and sad, when in the dusk borderlands of day and night he met and talked with the soft shadow of his heart's own. As I came into the room the General raised his eyes. They were tear-brimmed and he made no shift to hide them. “Major,” he said with trembling lip, gazing the while on the miniature, “she strove to make me a Christian. I gave her my promise to become a Christian. And so I shall when once I'm done with office and back again at home. I would become one now, were it within the domain of what might be. But who is he who could unite politics and Christ? I'm no hypocrite, Major; you know that! You know what a politician is; you know what a Christian should be. No man may be both, Major; no man may be both.” “You are not a politician,” I retorted. “You are a president.” This I got off with a gruff air of harshness, not, however, because it drew a true distinction. I sought to call him from his present mood. The General was unusual in so far that a best step towards comforting him was to irritate him. In his breast he loved collision, and might even leave mourning for a war. “I am a president and not a politician!” This with a gather of scorn. “And pray, when is a president not a politician?” With a deprecatory gesture I dismissed the point. “Let that remain,” I replied, “as a question wherewith to rack some further moment. I came for another matter.” The General turned a keen eye upon me. “You spoke of Eaton for your portfolio of war,” I continued. “Have you considered what objection might lodge against such course?” “Go on,” he said. “General, I misdoubt the wisdom of the step. I will make my word plain. There is none to be more the friend of Eaton than myself, none to respect him more. But, sir, you are aware of what folk say.” “And what do folk say?” Anger stood red on the brow of the General as a banner is flung from a battlement. “What do folk say?”