"Yes," she answered thoughtfully, "I never realized before what it meant to be with my own people. I could have burned New Orleans and laughed at its ruins to have smoked Ben Butler out of it--" "President Davis has proclaimed him an outlaw I see," Socola added. "If he can only capture and hang him, the people of Louisiana would be perfectly willing to lose all--" "But your brother, the Judge, is still loyal to the Union--you can't hate him you know?" Jennie's eyes flashed into Socola's. Why had he asked the one question that opened the wound in her heart? Perhaps her mind had suggested it. She had scarcely spoken the bitter words before she saw the vision of his serious face and regretted it. "Strange you should have mentioned my brother's name at the very moment his image was before me," the girl thoughtfully replied. "Clairvoyance perhaps--" "You believe in such things?" Jennie asked. "Yes. My mother leaped from her bed with a scream one night and told me that she had seen my father's spirit, felt him bend over her and touch her lips. He had died at exactly that moment." "Wonderful, isn't it," Jennie murmured softly, "the vision of love!" She was dreaming of the moments of her distress in the sacking of her home when the vision of this man's smiling face had suddenly set her to laughing. "Yes," Socola answered. "I asked you about your older brother because I don't like the idea of you poisoning your beautiful young life with hatred. Such thoughts kill--they can't bring health and strength, Miss Jennie." "Of course," the girl responded tenderly, "you can see things more calmly. You can't understand how deep the knife has entered our hearts in the South." "That's just what I do understand. It's that against which I'm warning you. This war can't last always you know. There must be a readjustment--" "Between the North and South?" "Of course--" "Never!" With sudden emotion she leaped to her feet her little fists clinched. She stood trembling in silence for a moment and her face paled. "No, Signor," she went on in cold tones. "There can be no readjustment of this war. It's to the death now. I confess myself a rebel body and soul--_Confess_? I glory in it! I'm proud of being one. I thought my father extravagant at first. Ben Butler has changed my views. The South can't look back now. It's forward--forward--always forward to death--or independence!" She paused overcome with emotion. "Yes," she went on in quick tones, "I thank God we're two different tribes! I'm proud of the South and her old-fashioned, out-of-date chivalry. The South respects and honors women. God never made the Southern white man who could issue Butler's orders in New Orleans or insult the heart-broken women who are forced to enter his office with the vile motto he has placed over his desk--" Socola lifted his hand in gentle smiling protest.