"Will you take me fishing?" he said. "Can you give me the whole morning? I hear there is better fishing in the lake above, and a farmhouse where we can get breakfast. Do you know the way?" She nodded, and he took the oars from her and rowed up the lake. "My wife always sleeps until noon," he said. "We can have seven hours if you will give them to me." "Of course I'll give them to you. I may as well admit that I intended to have them. I made an elaborate disposition of my household to that end." They were smiling at each other, and both looked happy and free of desire for anything but seven long hours of pleasant companionship. The morning, bright and full of sound, mated itself with the superficial moods of man, and was not cast for love-making. "Well, what have you been doing?" he asked. "I have had you in a permanent and most refreshing vision, floating up and down this lake, or flitting through the forest, in that white frock. I know that Burleigh was here--" "I did not wear white for him." "Ah! He has looked very vague, not to say mooning, since his return. I am thankful he is not seeing you exactly as I do. How is the lady of the shadows?" "Sally's Southern gorge rose so high, after she discovered the taint, that she left precipitately. She couldn't sit at the table with even a hidden drop of negro blood." "You Southerners will solve the negro problem by inspiring the entire race with an irresistible desire to cut its throat. If a tidal wave would wash Ireland out of existence and the blacks in this country would dispose of themselves, how happy we all should be! What else have you been doing?" "I have read the Congressional Record every day, and the _Federalist_ and State papers of Hamilton; to say nothing of the monographs in the American Statesmen Series. Mr. Burleigh insisted that I must acquire the national sense, and I have acquired it to such an extent that half the time I don't know whether I am living in history or out of it. Even the Record makes me feel impersonal, and as 'national' as Mr. Burleigh could wish." "Burleigh intends that his State shall be proud of you."