Her lover drew her away to the sunny window and whispered:
“My dearest, I recognized your loving care in every single arrangement for my comfort in my rooms last night. I knew it was this dear hand that wheeled my sofa in its place, and set the footstool, and even cut the leaves of the magazines upon the table. Shall I thank you for all this? No, sweet girl, I will not mock you so. But do you know, Erminie, that I sat up last night turning over all those magazines, merely because these dear fingers had touched them all?”
“I am so glad that you can be pleased with anything I can do for you, for, oh, it is so little I can do,” she murmured, softly.
“You can love me! You do love me, and that love of yours makes your slightest act for me a priceless service!” he replied, fervently pressing her hand to his lips.
“Hallo, Eastworth! what’s this? what’s this? what’s this? What on earth are they about in the Senate?” suddenly cried out the old minister, staring at the paper in his hand.
“What is what, sir?” inquired Colonel Eastworth, leaving the side of Erminie and going to join her father.
“This! this!” said the old minister, pointing emphatically to a lengthened report of the previous day’s debate in the Senate. It was a warm debate between the Union and the Secession factions. Eastworth looked from the paper to the face of the reader, and his face grew dark.
“I am afraid, sir,” he said, “that you do not look into the papers very often to keep up with the politics of the day.”
“No, no—I do not; I never did and never shall. I always let the opposing parties fight out their own battles, having such firm faith in the glorious destinies of the country as to feel well assured that the very worst of them can never succeed in bringing it to ruin. My eyes only happened to fall upon this debate by chance. But, I say, this looks a little serious, doesn’t it—as if they really mean secession, eh?”
“I think the Southern States really mean it, sir,” said Eastworth, gravely.