“Your unmixed Anglo-Saxon blood makes it impossible for you to imagine defeat, and like all men and women of your race you prove to be bad losers. You will appeal to the arbitrament of the sword, but you will never abide by it. After the South has been drenched in blood will come the great problem of reorganization and the birth of a national life which slavery has stifled. Now you are all Virginians or Georgians or Louisianians, but the day will come when you will all be Americans.” Neville sat and smoked in silence except for an occasional word full of pith and sense interjected in the conversation. It had always been like this. Neville was the listener, even as a boy, while Lyddon and Richard delighted in the attrition of minds. Their talk usually ranged far afield, but to-night they spoke of nothing except the coming conflict, and matters referring to it. “By the way,” said Richard, “I had a letter this afternoon from Philip Isabey in New Orleans. He returned from Paris months earlier than he expected because he foresees war, and the first news that reached him was of the secession of South Carolina. I have always looked forward to having you, Mr. Lyddon, know Isabey. He writes that he is already taking steps toward raising a battery of artillery, just the branch of the service which I shall join when the war breaks out. Isabey is a man born for success at whatever he undertakes as you well know by all I have told you of him.” Ever since Richard’s college days Isabey had been a part of Richard’s life. Many plans had been made for Isabey to visit Harrowby, but so far accident had prevented any of the family from knowing him except Neville, who had readily adopted his brother’s friend as his own during their brief periods of intercourse. After Richard’s graduation from the University of Virginia, of which Isabey was also an alumnus, they had spent two years together in Europe and the tie between them had thus become more closely knit. Lyddon had profound confidence in Richard’s judgment of men and was willing to believe that Isabey was all he was represented to be. It was plain that Isabey was as distinctively French in blood and training as Richard Tremaine was Anglo-Saxon. Isabey was a young man of fortune and, like Richard, contemplated entering public life. His letters, which Richard read aloud with pride, were full of sound sense, acute observation of men and things, and illuminated with French wit. There was a daguerreotype of him hanging in Richard’s room, representing him as a dark, slender young man, rather handsome, and unmistakably thoroughbred. There were, besides, half a dozen pen and pencil sketches of him illustrating some of the gay scenes through which he had lived with Richard in the Latin quarter. Each, while in Paris, had a handsome allowance which permitted him to enter the best society, to which each had the right of entrance. But it being contrary to the traditions of the Latin quarter that students should always