“’Tis better to make a first impression than none at all,” Val laughed.
“You’re right, young man,” Miss Imogene said gently; “and do not fear that even the oldest of us resent your compliments. We like them, don’t we, April?”
“Indeed we do, Val,” April replied. “Hal is too stupid to appreciate us.”
“It takes an Irishman to do that, April,” Val protested.
So the bantering went on through the supper and Dorothea, sitting quietly looking from one to the other about the table, thought it was strange indeed that this company of young people should be so gay and care-free with all the evidences of war about them. Everything they saw must have reminded them of the conflict. The young officers wore tattered uniforms, stained and patched; the girls made-over finery; the very food was so limited in variety that Aunt Decent grumbled from morning till night. And yet there was no faltering of the confidence these charming Southerners had in the outcome. They made light of their make-shifts; they laughed at the privations they were forced to endure; they faced with courage what might be in store for them, predicting victory at the end.
Dorothea was in two minds whether to admire them for their fortitude or to question whether they had any realization of the seriousness of the times in which they were living. It seemed as if they gloried in scorning the thought that they might lose. That contingency they put away from them, as they did all other unpleasant facts. The English girl’s first sight of these care-free people set her to wondering if they could ever be serious. She could not help but contrast this lightness with the different view of the matter held in the North, where a universal anxiety was met with on every hand. With their gay laughter all about her she had a remembrance of the sad face of Mr. Lincoln, who seemed to grieve for all the suffering, no matter on whom it fell.
“How can they win?” Dorothea asked herself.
“I tell you it’s getting downright serious,” she heard Val Tracy saying, as she brought her thoughts back to her surroundings. “The Yankees seem to know just what we mean to do and to prepare for it. There have been a dozen plans that have had to be abandoned. The South is full of spies!”
“And some of them are worse than that,” April broke out passionately. “They are traitors!”
“Yes, that’s right,” her brother Hal put in. “We’ve just learned that there’s a society all through the South that is growing more powerful every day. It’s called the Red Strings.”