"Through the North and West you may have one old soldier to a village; here we have one to a house. For you it was a foreign war, which meant only dispatches in the newspapers. For us it was a war on our own front lawns, and the way we followed it was by the hearses backing up to the door. You can hardly walk a mile in any direction out of this city without stumbling upon an old breastworks. And in the city--well, you know all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Massachusetts, if you have a place where John Samuel Quincy Adams once stopped for a cup of tea, you fence it off, put a brass plate on the front door, and charge a nickel to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is no more to the nation than Lee is to the South. "But don't let anybody get concerned about our patriotism. We're better Americans, not worse, because of days like these, the reason being, as I say, that we are better men. And if your old Uncle Sammy gets into trouble some day, never fear but we'll be on hand to pull him out, with the best troops that ever stepped, and another Lee to lead them." Somewhere during the afternoon there had returned to Queed the words in which Sharlee Weyland had pointed out to him--quite unnecessarily--that he was standing here between two civilizations. On the porch now sat Miss Weyland's grandmother, representative of the dead aristocracy. By his side stood, clearly, a representative of the rising democracy--one of those "splendid young men" who, the girl thought, would soon be beating the young men of the North at every turn. It was valuable professionally to catch the point of view of these new democrats; and now he had grasped the fact that whatever the changes in outward form, it had an unbroken sentimental continuity with the type which it was replacing. "Did you ever hear Ben Hill's tribute to Lee?" inquired the young man presently. Queed happened to know it very well. However, the other could not be restrained from reciting it for his own satisfaction. "It is good--a good piece of writing and a fine tribute," said Queed. "However, I read a shorter and in some ways an even better one in _Harper's Weekly_ the other day." "_Harper's Weekly!_ Good Heavens! They'll find out that William Lloyd Garrison was for us next. What'd it say?"