"Well," ejaculated Mrs. Hunter at last, "my impressions concerning people are usually correct, and it is well for you that they are. If it had not been for me you might have become entangled in association with a man false and disloyal in all respects. I say entangled in association, resulting from a moment of weakness, for assuredly the instant you gained self-possession and had time for thought, you would have repudiated everything. I saved you from the embarrassment of all this, and now you can realize how important was the service I rendered. I have heard of the performances of Mr. Clancy at the North." The hot flush on Mara's cheeks followed by pallor proved that her indifference had been thoroughly banished, but she only looked at her aunt like one ready for a blow. "Yes," resumed Mrs. Hunter, "the story has come very straight--straight from that young Mrs. Willoughby, who, with her husband, seems as ready to forget and condone all that the South has suffered as your devoted admirer himself. Devoted indeed! He is now paying his devotions at another shrine. A Northern girl with her Northern gold is the next and natural step in his career, and he said to her pointblank that if the South again sought to regain her liberty, he would not help. He wasn't a Samson, but he was not long in being shorn by a Northern Delilah of what little strength he had." "How do you know that this is true?" asked Mara rigid, with suppressed feeling. "Oh, Mrs. Willoughby must talk if the heavens fell. It seems that she met this Northern girl abroad, and that they have become great friends. She has received a letter, and it is quite probable that this girl will come here. It would be just like her to follow up her new admirer. Mrs. Willoughby is so hot in her advocacy of what she terms the 'New South,' that she must speak of everything which seems to favor her pestilential ideas. By birth she belongs to the Old South and the only true South, and she tries to keep in with it, but she is getting the cold shoulder from more than one." Mara said nothing, but her brow contracted. "You take it very quietly," remarked her aunt severely. "Yes," said Mara. "Well, if I were in your place I would be on fire with indignation." "Perhaps I would be if I did not care very much," was the girl's constrained answer. "I do not see how you can care except as I do." "You are you, aunty, and I am myself. People are not all made exactly alike." "But a girl should have some self-respect." "Yes, aunty, and she should be respected. I am one to show my self-respect by deeds, not words. You must not lecture me any more now as if I were a child," and she rose and left her almost untasted dinner. A little thought soon satisfied Mrs. Hunter that the iron had entered deep into the soul of her niece, and that her deeds would be satisfactory. She therefore finished her dinner complacently.