We discovered the General in his rooms. We found him in a rather merry spirit for him. He was sitting by his fire, with Peg on a footstool at a corner of the fireplace.
Hearing of the General's diet of rice, Peg's mother—she lived over to the south, across that wooded strip, the Mall—holding herself to excel in certain elixirs and cordials and draughts marvelous for maladies stomachic, had sent to the General's relief a bottle of medicine warranted of transcendent merit, and in which dandelion flourished a dominant element. The good lady would trust her drugs to none save Peg; there she was, then, the fairest foot and hand ever to be sent on porter's work or to run an errand with a message.
The unexpected sight of Peg sent over me a wave of pleasure. I love the beautiful, have an inborn joy of it, and who or what could be more lovely than our Peg—Peg with her wildrose face?
The General glanced up through the tobacco smoke wherewith the rooms were cloudy. Peg had said she loved smoke, and could stand to it like a side of bacon. His look was of half-recognition as it settled upon my company.
“The Reverend Campbell, is it not?” said he.
“The same, Mr. President,” returned the other, commencing again those bowing motions which had so tortured my soul, his flabby cheeks the while exuding a beady dew; “the same. And here is Deborah, my well-beloved wife, Mr. President.”
The magpie one of rumpled feather gained indication by the Reverend Campbell pointing to her with a bulbous forefinger that was somewhat suffering about the nail for lack of care. The magpie one gave the usual proof of her satisfaction with chirp and giggle.
“The last time I beheld you, Mr. President,” said the Reverend Campbell, “you and your dear wife sat beneath my words.” The General flinched as though a rude hand touched a wound. He gathered himself, however. “That dear one, Mr. President, has gone from our midst. It is a chastening, Mr. President. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. It is a loss, Mr. President, but we must summon meekness of spirit. Blessed are the meek in spirit, saith the singer, and they shall inherit the earth. Mr. President, let us pray.”
The Reverend Campbell rolled forth the foregoing, and never halt or pause; with the last word he was down upon his knees, expanding into a gale of prayer.
It is not for me to pass upon such sacred petitions, but the Reverend Campbell's effort grated on my conscience as crude, and, if the term be not improper, vulgar. The General, who was still in his chair, bowed head in hand and sat silent throughout. He made neither sign nor sound; and yet it must have galled him like musketry, that prayer.