“He said, according to the Delta’s report, that this was the rich man’s war; that the laboring man who should lift his arm in defence of slavery was a fool. All which I hold to be true.”
“Pshaw, Charles! A truce to politics!” said Onslow. “Why will you thrust it into faces that frown on your wild notions?”
“Miss Tremaine reigns absolute in this room,” rejoined Vance; “and from the slavery she imposes we have no desire, I presume, to be free.”
“And her order is,” cried Laura, “that you sink the shop. Thank you, Mr. Vance, for vindicating my authority.”
There was no further jarring. Both the young men were personally fine specimens of the Southern chivalric race. Onslow was the larger and handsomer. He seemed to unite with a feminine gentleness the traits that make a man popular and beloved among men; a charming companion, sunny-tempered, amiable, social, ever finding a soul of goodness in things evil, and making even trivialities surrender enjoyments, where to other men all was barren. Life was to him a sort of grand picnic, and a man’s true business was to make himself as agreeable as possible, first to himself, and then to others.
Far different seemed Kenrick. To him the important world was that of ideas. All else was unsubstantial. The thought that was uppermost must be uttered. Not to conciliate, not to please, even in the drawing-room, would he be an assentator, a flatterer. To him truth was the one thing needful, and therefore, in season and out of season, must error be combated whenever met. The times were of a character to intensify in him all his idiosyncrasies. He could not smile, and sing, and utter small-talk while his country was being weighed in the balance of the All-just,—and her institutions purged as by fire.
And so to Laura he dwindled into insignificance.
Vance rose to go.
“One song. Indeed, I must have one,” said Laura.
Vance complied with her request, singing a favorite song of Estelle’s, Reichardt’s