A few moments later Mara supported the old lady down to the dining-room, and, though the viands were few and meagre, the banqueters, to say the least, were not commonplace. Mara said nothing of her plan, but Ella was invited to spend the following morning with her. In the late lingering twilight Captain Bodine escorted the young girl home. On the way thither they came plump upon Owen Clancy. He glanced keenly from one to the other as he lifted his hat. Mara's only response was a slight bow. CHAPTER XV TWO LITTLE BAKERS Mara led Captain Bodine up to their little parlor and introduced him to Mrs. Hunter, who received him most cordially, feeling that in him she recognized a congenial spirit. He treated her with the respect and old-time courtesy which she said was "so truly Southern." Their feelings and beliefs touched closely at several points, yet they were very different in their essential characteristics. Poor Mrs. Hunter had been limited by nature and education. She could not help being narrow in all her views; she was scarcely less able to dismiss her intense, bitter prejudices. She was quite incapable of reasoning herself into her mental position; it was simply the inevitable result of her circumstances, her lot and her own temperament. Captain Bodine was a proud man, as proud toward himself as toward others. The cause for which he and his kindred had suffered and lost so much had been sacred, and therefore it ever would be sacred. To change his views, to begin revising his opinions, would be to stultify himself and to reflect dishonor on his comrades in arms who had perished. In the very depths of his young, ardent spirit he had once devoted himself to the South; he had listened reverently to prayers from the pulpit that God would bless the Southern armies; he had never entered into battle without petitions to Heaven, not that he might escape, but that the "Northern invader" might be overcome; his uniform had been stained with blood again and again as he held dying comrades in his arms and spoke words of cheer. In his more limited way, he had the spirit of "Stonewall" Jackson. It was impossible for a man with his nature and with his memories to argue the whole matter over coolly and recognize misleading errors. During his youth and early manhood his feelings had been so intense as to be volcanic, and that feeling, like lava, had cooled of into its present unchangeable forms and sombre hues. What was bitterness and almost spite in Mrs. Hunter was a deep, abiding sorrow in his heart, a great dream unfulfilled, a cause lofty because so idealized, in support of which he often saw in fancy, when alone, spectral thousands in gray, marching as he once had seen them in actual life. That all had been in vain, was to him one of those mysterious providences to which he could only bow his head in mournful resignation, in patient endurance. He had no hate for the North, for he was broad enough in mind to recognize