This had thrown Thurston into a state of rather chronic opposition to the good lady, and he revenged himself for the loss of the daughter, by a habit of apparently espousing whatever the mother disapproved of, who on her part, lived in a constant effort to prove him in the wrong. He had even ventured to express open skepticism as to the wisdom of the steps Mrs. Welch and her Aid Society had been taking in their philanthropic efforts on behalf of the freedmen; giving expression to the heretical doctrine that in the main the negroes had been humanely treated before the war, and that the question should be dealt with now from an economical rather than from a sentimental standpoint. He gave it as his opinion that the people down there knew more about the Negro, and the questions arising out of the new conditions, than those who were undertaking to settle those questions, from a distance, and that, if let alone, the questions would settle themselves. While as to Leech, the correspondent of Mrs. Welch’s society, he declared that he would not believe anything he said. Nothing could have scandalized Mrs. Welch more than such an utterance. And it is probable that this attitude on Thurston’s part did as much as her real philanthropy to establish her in the extreme views she held. For some time past there had been appearing in the _Censor_, the chief paper in the city where the Welches lived, a series of letters giving a dreadful, and, what Mrs. Welch considered, a powerful account of the outrages that were taking place in the South. According to the writer, the entire native white population were engaged in nothing but the systematic murder and mutilation of unoffending negroes and Northern settlers, who on their side were wholly without blame and received this persecution with the most Christian and uncomplaining humility. The author’s name was not given, because, it was stated in the letters, if it were known, he would at once be murdered. Indeed, it was declared that the letters were not written for publication at all, but were sent to a philanthropic organization composed of the best and most benevolent ladies in the country, who would vouch for the high standing of the noble Christian gentleman from whose pen the accounts emanated. As the letters were from the very section—indeed, from the very neighborhood which Thurston always cited as an evidence of the beneficent effect of his theory of moderation—Mrs. Welch, who was the head of the organization to which Leech had written them, saved them for the purpose of confounding and, once for all, disposing of Captain Thurston’s arguments, together with himself. So one morning when Thurston was calling on Ruth Mrs. Welch brought in the whole batch of papers and plumped them down before him with a triumphant air. “Now, you read every word before you express an opinion,” she said, decisively.