They drove away. The last they saw of Demming he was blandly waving his hand. The drive back from the house so unexpectedly disclosed as not a house of mourning was somewhat silent. The Bishop was the first to speak. "I shall insist upon returning every cent of that money," he said. "I assure you none of us will take it," Talboys answered; "and really, you know, the sell was quite worth the money." "And you did see her, after all," said Louise dryly, "standing in the doorway, with her old clay pipe in her mouth." The Bishop smiled, but he sighed, too. "Well, well, I ought not to have lost my temper. But I am disappointed in Demming. I thought I had won his affection, and I hoped through his affection to reach his conscience. I suppose I deceived myself." "I fear he hasn't any conscience to reach," Louise observed. "I agree with Miss Louise," said Talboys. "You see, Demming is a cracker." "Ah! the cracker has his virtues," observed the Bishop; "not the cardinal New England virtues of thrift and cleanliness and energy; but he has his own. He is as hospitable as an Arab, brave, faithful, and honest, and full of generosity and kindness." "All the same, he isn't half civilized," said Talboys, "and as ignorant morally as any being you can pick up. He doesn't steal or lie much, I grant you, but he smashes all the other commandments to flinders. He kills when he thinks he has been insulted, and he hasn't the feeblest scruples about changing his old wife for a new one whenever he feels like it, without any nonsense of divorce. The women are just as bad as the men. But Demming is not only a cracker; he is a cracker spoiled by the tourists. We have despoiled him of his simplicity. He hasn't learned any good of us,--that goes without saying,--but he has learned no end of Yankee tricks. Do you suppose that if left to himself he would ever have been up to this morning's performance? Oh, we've polished his wicked wits for him! Even his dialect is no longer pure South Carolinian; it is corrupted by Northern slang. We have ruined his religious principles, too. The crackers haven't much of any morality, but they are very religious,--all Southerners are. But Demming is an unconscious Agnostic. 'I tell ye,' he says to the saloon theologians, 'thar ain't no tellin'. 'Ligion's a heap like jumpin' arter a waggin in th' dark; yo' mo'n likely ter lan' on nuthin'!' And you have seen for yourselves that he has lost the cracker honesty." "At least," said Louise, "he has the cracker hospitality left; he made us welcome to all he had." "And did you notice," said the Bishop, who had quite smoothed his ruffled brow by this time,--"did you notice the consideration, tenderness almost, that he showed to his wife? Demming has his redeeming qualities, believe me, Mr. Talboys." "I see that you don't mean to give him up," said Talboys, smiling; but he did not pursue the subject.