"I should have been proud. Sir, to have been your widow under such circumstances." "Thank you, Mrs. Dinwiddie; but being a mod--mod--modest man myself, I'd rather not make my wife proud." "There's no danger of your ever doing that, Sir," quoth Madam; "but I thank Heaven we're not wholly disgraced. We have one representative of our family in the Confederate army. My son Culpepper may live to make amends for his sire's degeneracy." Dinwiddie was beginning to get roused. "My degeneracy, Madam? Confound it, Madam, where would you and yours have been, if I hadn't saved you all from pau--pau--pauperism, Madam?" It was rare that Dinwiddie made so long a speech, and the lady was astounded. "Sir," said she, "do you know it is a Culpepper of whom you speak?" "Devilish well I know it," said the excited Daniel; "and what you all had but your pride I never could find out; and what were you proud of? Of a dozen or two old family nig--nig--niggers, that were only a bill of expense to that pompous old cove, your father." Mrs. Dinwiddie began to grow livid with exasperation. Her husband had touched her on a tender point. "Go on, Sir," said she; "I see your drift. I have suspected for some time that you were going to play the renegade; to desert your order; to prove false to the South; to cooperate with miscreant Yankees in overturning our sacred institutions." "Confound your sacred institutions, Madam! Slavery is played out." "Played out, you monstrous blasphemer? An institution for which Scripture vouches; an institution which the Reverend Dr. Palmer says comes right down to us from heaven! Played out? Monster! I thank the Lord my two children have not been corrupted by these detestable Yankee notions that are upsetting all our old landmarks in this once noble city of Baltimore." "Noble? Ah, yes,--noble, I suppose, when it allowed its ruffians to shoot down a band of Northern soldiers who were marching to the support of Government!" "You yourself said at the time, Mr. Dinwiddie, that it served them right." Dinwiddie winced, for this was a blow square on his forehead between his two eyes. He paused, and then, without knowing it, translated the words of a Latin moralist, and replied,-- "Times change, and we change with them." "You will find, Sir, that a Culpepper doesn't change," said Madam; and, with a gesture of queenly scorn, she swept with expansive crinoline out of the room. "So the ice is broken at last," muttered Dinwiddie. "I wouldn't have believed I could have faced her so well. After all, I'm not sure that the military is not my true sphere."