"Promised to marry you, eh? Sally Mickleborough? Are you sure it's Sally Mickleborough?" "I'm hardly likely to be mistaken, General, about the identity of my future wife." "No, I suppose you ain't," he admitted, "but, good Lord, Ben, how did you make her do it?" "I didn't make her. She was good enough to do it of her own accord." "So she did it of her own accord? Well, confound you, boy, how did it ever occur to you to ask her?" "That's what I can't answer, General, I don't believe it ever occurred to me any more than it occurred to me to fall in love with her." "You've fallen in love with Sally Mickleborough, Miss Matoaca's niece. She refused George, you know?" I replied that I didn't know it, but I never supposed that she would engage herself to two men at the same time. "And she's seriously engaged to you?" he demanded, still unconvinced. "Are you precious sure she isn't flirting? Girls will flirt, and I don't reckon you've had much experience of 'em. Why, even Miss Mitty was known to flirt in a prim, stiff-necked fashion in her time, and as for Sarah Bland, they say she promised to marry a whole regiment before the battle of Seven Pines. A little warning beforehand ain't going to do any harm, Ben." "I'm much obliged to you, General, but I don't think in this case it's needed. Sally is staunch and true." "Sally? Do you call her 'Sally'? It used to be the custom to address the lady you were engaged to as 'Miss Sally' up to the day of the marriage." I laughed and shook my head. "Oh, we move fast!" "Yes, I'm an old man," he admitted sadly, "and I was brought up in a different civilisation. It's funny, my boy, how many customs were swept away with the institution of slavery." "There'd have been little room for me in those days." "Oh, you'd have got into some places quick enough, but you'd never have crossed the Blands' threshold when they lived down on James River. There isn't much of that nonsense left now, but Miss Mitty has got it and Theophilus has got it; and, when all's said, they, might have something considerably worse. Why, look at Miss Matoaca. When I first saw her you'd never have imagined there was an idea inside her head." "I can understand that she must have been very pretty." "Pretty? She was as beautiful as an angel. And to think of her distributing those damned woman's rights pamphlets! She left one on my desk," he added, sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, and wiping his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. "I tell you if she'd had a husband this would never have happened." "We can't tell--it might have been worse, if she believes it."