This, however, I will say; the fact that Peg could so practice upon Eaton to his blindness gave me no high opinion of that gentleman. He should have groped for her and grasped her, and found her out for the loving, loyal, sorrowing heart she was; and that he did not, but went in placid darkness of the treasure he held in his hands, content to have it so, marked him for a lack of insight and want of sympathy which I'm bound to say do not distinguish me. Such stolidity on the part of folk has caused me more often than once to consider whether the angels, by mere possession, may not at last find even heaven commonplace. Still, it is none the less infuriating to witness so much beauty so much thrown away! Indubitably, the economy of existence asks for pigs as loudly as it asks for pearls, and to blame Eaton for failing in appreciation of Peg is as apart from equity as would be the flogging of a horse who sees no beauty in a moss-rose--and less, perhaps--not present in a musty lock of hay. However, it is none the less infuriating for that. Mark you though, I would be guilty of no wrong to Eaton, nor establish him on too low a level in your esteem. He was in the Senate from Tennessee at the time, and of solid repute among his fellows. He was a brave, dull, good-humored sort, who thought better, perhaps, of a bottle than of a book--not to excess, you are to notice--and as a statesman, if he put out no fires, he kindled none; though he did no good, at worst he did no harm; and that, let me tell you, is a record somewhat better than the average. I have been attacked and charged with a distaste of Eaton. There are two words to go with that, and no one--and I challenge those who knew us both--can put his finger on any ill of word or deed or thought I ever aimed against him. Truly, I hunted not his company with horn and horse and hound; but what then? I take it, I'm as free to pick and choose for my intimates as any other. And I still declare what was in my thoughts in those hours I tell of, that Eaton, sluggish and something of a clod-head, and with a blurred, gray tone of fancy, was unworthy such a woman, whose love for him, be it said, was when I met her as boundless as the difficulty of accounting for its first existence. I say again, and the last time, I hold no dislike for Eaton, and more than once have done him good favors in days gone. That I shall grant him no extensive mention in these pages means no more than that he was but a supernumerary in the drama where of the General and Peg carried the great parts. Eaton came on and off; but his lines were few and brief and burned with no interest. There is little reason for prodigious clamor over Eaton, and little there will be. But I am not to be accused of unfairness to the man for that he dwelt with an angel and was too thick to find it out. Peg at last recalled herself from the dead Timberlake. She brushed away her tears.