The Preacher rose to respond to the toast, “The Master and the Mistress of the Governor’s Mansion,” and seemed to pay no attention to the Governor, but turning to Sallie, he said, “To the queenly daughter of the South, who had eyes to see a glorious manhood behind prison bars, the nobility to stoop from wealth to poverty and transform a jail into a palace with the beauty of her face and the splendour of her love--to her, the heroine who inspired Charles Gaston with power to mould a million wills in his, change the current of history, and become the Governor of the Commonwealth--to her all honour, and praise, and homage. “My daughter, it is meet that our wealth and beauty should mate with the genius and chivalry of the South. May it ever be so, and may your children’s children be as the sands of the sea!” Sallie bowed her head as every eye was turned admiringly upon her. The General trembled, and, when the crowd rose to their feet and reëchoed, “To her all honour and praise and homage,” and the Governor bent proudly kissing her hand, he bowed his head and wept. Her mother sitting by her side with shining eyes pressed her hand and whispered, “My beautiful daughter, now my work is done.” As Gaston strolled out on the lawn with his bride after the banquet, they found a seat in a secluded spot amid the shrubbery. “My sweet wife!” he exclaimed. “My husband!” she whispered, as they tenderly clasped hands. “Tell me now who was the author of all those lies about me to your father?” “Why ask it, dear? You know Allan wrote the last letter.” “The dastard. I was sure of it from the first. Well, he had the facts in that last letter, didn’t he?” “Yes,” she answered with a smile. They rose to return to the Mansion, roused by the stroke of midnight from the clock in the tower of the City Hall. “From to-night, my dear,” he said, with enthusiasm, “you will share with me all the honours and responsibilities of public life.” “No, my love, I do not desire any part in public life except through you. You are my world. I ask no higher gift of God than your love, whether you live in a Governor’s Mansion, or the humblest cottage. I desire no career save that of a wife--your wife”--she hid her face on his breast as a little sob caught her voice, “and I would not change places with the proudest queen that ever wore a crown!” She said this looking up into his face through a mist of tears. With trembling lips and dimmed eyes he stooped and kissed her as he replied, “And I had rather be the husband of such a woman than to be the ruler of the world.” THE END End of Project Gutenberg's The Leopard's Spots, by Thomas Dixon, Jr.