“Yes, all trying to look interesting,” Harriot answered, with more than a trace of scorn in her tone.
Corinne regarded her askance for a moment.
“What in the world has come over you to-day?” she asked. “That’s no way to speak of our heroes. If you weren’t my very own cousin—”
“Well, I am,” Harriot interrupted, “and I’m just as much for the South as any one.”
“More so than some, I hope,” Corinne interrupted in her turn.
Harriot stopped short in her tracks.
“If you say a word about mother being a Submissionist, I’ll never speak to you again,” she threatened seriously.
“I wasn’t going to mention Aunt Parthenia,” Corinne asserted, but the younger girl shook her head as if she were not so sure of this.
“Just because mother didn’t think we should have seceded doesn’t make her a traitor to the South,” she continued earnestly. “Besides, April is rebel enough for a whole family.”
The girls walked on again in silence. They had touched upon a delicate subject, and Corinne, with unusual good sense, held her tongue until they reached the railroad shed where the expected train was just coming to a stop.