"I would listen to anything he said," replied the Judge. "Poor white trash, sir! The greatest men rise from the people. A demagogue!" Mr. Whipple fairly shook with rage. "The nation doesn't know him yet. But mark my words, the day will come when it will. He was ballotted for Vice-President in the Philadelphia convention last year. Nobody paid any attention to that. If the convention had heard him speak at Bloomington, he would have been nominated instead of Fremont. If the nation could have heard him, he would be President to-day instead of that miserable Buchanan. I happened to be at Bloomington. And while the idiots on the platform were drivelling, the people kept calling for Lincoln. I had never heard of him then. I've never forgot him since. He came ambling out of the back of the hall, a lanky, gawky looking man, ridiculously ugly, sir. But the moment he opened his mouth he had us spellbound. The language which your low-down lawyer used was that of a God-sent prophet, sir. He had those Illinois bumpkins all worked up,--the women crying, and some of the men, too. And mad! Good Lord, they were mad--'We will say to the Southern disunionists,' he cried,--'we will say to the Southern disunionists, we won't go out of the Union, and you shan't.'" There was a silence when the Judge finished. But presently Mr. Carvel took a match. And he stood over the Judge in his favorite attitude, --with his feet apart,--as he lighted another cigar. "I reckon we're going to have war, Silas," said he, slowly; "but don't you think that your Mr. Lincoln scares me into that belief. I don't count his bluster worth a cent. No sirree! It's this youngster who comes out here from Boston and buys a nigger with all the money he's got in the world. And if he's an impetuous young fool; I'm no judge of men." "Appleton Brice wasn't precisely impetuous," remarked Mr. Whipple. And he smiled a little bitterly, as though the word had stirred a memory. "I like that young fellow," Mr. Carvel continued. "It seems to be a kind of fatality with me to get along with Yankees. I reckon there's a screw loose somewhere, but Brice acted the man all the way through. He goa a fall out of you, Silas, in your room, after the show. Where are you going, Jinny?" Virginia had risen, and she was standing very erects with a flush on her face, waiting for her father to finish. "To see Anne Brinsmade," she said. "Good-by, Uncle Silas." She had called him so from childhood. Hers was the one voice that seemed to soften him--it never failed. He turned to her now with a movement that was almost gentle. "Virginia, I should like you to know my young Yankee," said he. "Thank you, Uncle Silas," said the girl, with dignity, "but I scarcely think that he would care to know me. He feels so strongly." "He feels no stronger than I do," replied the Judge. "You have gotten used to me in eighteen years, and besides," she flashed, "you never spent all the money you had in the world for a principle."