Grey looked up. The little figure facing her had a body that somehow put you in mind of unraised dough: and there was nothing spongy or porous or delusive in the solid little soul either, inside of the body,--that was plain. She looked as if Kentucky had sent her out, a tight, right, compact drill-sergeant, an embodiment of Western reason, to try by herself at drum-head court-martial the whole rank and file of Northernisms, airy and intangible illusions. Nothing about her that did not summon you to stand and deliver common sense; the faint down on her upper-lip, the clog-soled shoes, the stiff dress, the rope of a gold watch-chain, the single pure diamond blazing on one chubby white hand, the general effect of a lager-bier keg, unmovable, self-poised, the round black eyes, the two black puffs of hair on each temple, said with one voice, "No fooling now; no chance for humbug here." Why should there be? One of the Shelbys; well-built in bone and blood, honest, educated,--mule-raisers; courted by General Sheppard according to form, a modest, industrious girl, a dignified, eminently sensible wife, a blindly loving mother, a shrewd business-woman as a widow. Her son was a Christian, her slaves were fat and contented, her mules the best stock imported. She hated the Abolitionists, lank, uncombed, ill-bred fanatics; despised the Secessionists as disappointed Democrats; clung desperately to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws, not knowing she was holding to the most airy and illusive nothings of all. So she was here with Pratt, her son, at Harper's Ferry, nursing the sick, keeping a sharp eye on the stock her overseer sold to Government, looking into the face of every Rebel prisoner brought in, with a very woman's sick heart, but colder growing eyes. For Buckner, you know, had induced Harry to go into the Southern army. Harry Clay, (they lived near Ashland,)--Harry was his mother's pet, before this, the youngest. If he was wounded, like to die, not all their guerrillas or pickets should keep her back; though, when he was well, she would leave him without a word. He had gone, like the prodigal son, to fill his belly with the husks the swine did eat,--and not until he came back, like the prodigal son, would she forgive him. But if he was wounded--If Grey had stopped one hour before coming to this man she loved, she would have despised her. "Were you afraid to travel alone?" "Yes; but I brought Pen for company, Paul. You did not see that I brought Pen." But Pen shied from the outstretched hand, and had recourse to a vial of spirituous-looking liquorice-water. It was raining now, heavily. By some occult influence, Mrs. Sheppard had caused a table to spring up beside the bed, whereon a cozy round-stomached oil-lamp burned and flared in the wind, in a jolly, drunken fashion, and a coffee-pot sent out mellow whiffs of brown steam.