The anti-slavery element planned to hold a meeting two nights later at which they proposed to express their feelings in denunciation of Brooks and in praise of Sumner and his speech, to voice their indignation over the course of events in Kansas, and to ask for money for the relief of the free-state settlers and for the sending of more colonists with whom to swell their numbers. It was Dr. Ware’s intention to take Rhoda to this meeting, at which he was to make the principal speech, and immediately afterward to have with her the conversation which he believed would secure her help. But in the afternoon of that day Jefferson Delavan appeared at the door of his office and hoped he might present his respects to Mrs. Ware and Miss Rhoda. CHAPTER IV “‘A felon’s blow,’ indeed! O, la, you horrid thing!” Charlotte Ware, alone in the living-room, rocked violently back and forth a few times, apparently as an outlet for her indignation, then turned her flushed cheeks and snapping eyes again upon the New York “Tribune” in her hands. She stayed her rocking for a moment, absorbed in the article which had aroused her anger, but presently broke out again: “‘The symbol of the South is the bludgeon!’ Oh, you wretch!” She struck the page with her fist, but went on reading again until she came to some sentiment which gave a still deeper prod to her anger. Then springing to her feet, she crushed the journal into a ball, whipped off her slipper and began to spank vigorously the offending news. The paper flew from her hands and the kitten, which had tumbled from her lap, whisked after it. She pursued and sent it across the room with another blow, ran after it and beat it again, exclaiming, “There! That’s what you deserve!” “Charlotte, what are you doing?” It was her father’s voice at the door, and without looking up she answered, between her whacks at the tattered paper: “It’s that old meeting in New York about Sumner and I’m giving that horrid Beecher person’s speech what it deserves, and I wish it was him!” “Bravo, Miss Charlotte!” came quick response in a strange masculine voice, followed by a hearty laugh and two or three little handclaps. She wheeled, her slipper in her hand, and saw a young man beside her father in the doorway, a good-looking young man, broad-shouldered and erect of stature. It flashed upon her that this must be Mr. Jefferson Delavan. Under cover of picking up the kitten she adroitly slipped on her shoe. As she came forward, blushing and confused, trying to cover her embarrassment with an extra tilting of her hoopskirt and a pouting, defiant little smile, she seemed to Delavan to be little more than a spoiled, amusing child, so sweet and dainty to look at that to indulge her would be a pleasure.