"And peace can be terrible," the Colonel thundered. "A country that buys peace at the price of dishonor is no better than a frump who sells her soul for gewgaws and furbalows! When posterity shall read of how the diseased mind of a single lunatic has stabbed history's richest pages with a sword of murder, rapacity and lust, it will turn a lip of contempt toward every nation that stood upon a vacuous neutrality. To hell with neutrality, when a madman stalks abroad!"
Miss Veemie now felt that she had been silenced for the rest of time, and Miss Sallie's delicate hands, incongruously housed in heavy garden gloves, became expressive of horrified amazement.
"What?" he demanded, looking more than ever furious.
The little ladies jumped, and Miss Sallie made haste to say:
"Why—why nothing."
He eyed them for a moment; not suspiciously, but with anger at everything in the universe—themselves, perhaps, excepted.
"Where's Jeb?" he asked.
"He went into the country again with his rifle this morning," Miss Sallie answered. "He feels as you do, Colonel, that the time has come to strike and we must be preparing for it."
"But I wish you'd speak to him," Miss Veemie imploringly added. "He's bent on getting ready and being among the first, if the time comes, and—and——"
"And he'll do it in splendid style, rest assured of it, m'em! Jeb will make a fine soldier!—he comes from a line of soldiers!"