Mrs. Barton pressed Dick's hand with the softest touch that reassured his fears. The only trouble about Mrs. Barton was she was gentle and friendly to everybody, black and white, old and young, Yankee or Southerner. She was even sorry for old John Brown when they hung him. "Poor thing, he was crazy," she said tenderly. "They ought to have sent him to the asylum." Try as he might, he couldn't fling off the impression of tragedy the meeting of Socola with Jennie had produced. He was in a nervous fit to see and tell her of his love. Why the devil hadn't he done so before anyhow? They might have been engaged and ready to be married by this time. They had met when she was sixteen. Why on earth couldn't he throw off the fool idea that he was going to lose her? His big fist suddenly closed with resolution. "I'll not lose her! I'll wring that viper's neck--I'll wade through blood and death and the fires of h--" Just as he was plunging waist deep through the flames of the Pit, she appeared in the door, the picture of wistful, tender beauty. He rose awkwardly and extended his hand. "Good morning, Dick!" "Good morning, Jennie--" Her hand was hot, her eyes heavy with tears. "What's the matter?" he asked. "As if you didn't know--I've been saying good-by to some of the dearest friends I've ever known. It's terrible. I just feel it's the end of the world--" He started to say: "Don't worry, Jennie darling, you have me. I love you!" The thought of it made the cold beads of perspiration suddenly stand out on his forehead. It was one thing to think such things--another to say it aloud to a girl with Jennie's serious brown eyes. She seemed terribly serious this morning and far away somehow. Never had he seen her so utterly lovely. The mood of tender seriousness made her more beautiful than ever. If he only dared to crush her in his arms and laugh the smiles back into her eyes. When he spoke it was only a commonplace he managed to blurt out: "So you're really going to-morrow?" "Yes--we've telegraphed the boys to come home from school at once and join us in Montgomery." He tried to say it again, but the speech turned out to be political, not personal. "Of course Virginia'll stand by her Southern sisters, Jennie--" "Yes--" "It's just a few old moss-backs holding her. No army will ever march across her soil to fight a Southern State--" "I hope not." "Of course not. I'll meet them on the border with one musket anyhow--" The girl was looking out the window at the slowly drizzling rain and made no answer. He flushed at her apparent indifference to his heroic stand. "Don't you believe I would?" "Would what, Dick?" she smiled, recovering herself from her reverie. It was no use beating about the bush, trying to talk politics. He had to make the plunge. He suddenly took her hand in his. She threw him a startled look, sat bolt upright, made the faintest effort to draw her hand away, and blushed furiously.