“Ah!” he said, as he suddenly recollected. “Yes; I had forgotten. You mean your being a Union woman.”
“Yes. It seems to me they’ll be sure to find it out. Don’t you think it will interfere?”
The Doctor mused.
“I forgot that,” he repeated and mused again. “You can’t blame us, Mary; we’re at white heat”—
“Indeed I don’t!” said Mary, with eager earnestness.
He reflected yet again.
“But—I don’t know, either. It may be not as great a drawback as you think. Here’s Madame Zénobie, for instance”—
Madame Zénobie was just coming up the front steps from the garden, pulling herself up upon the veranda wearily by the balustrade. She came forward, and, with graceful acknowledgment, accepted the physician’s outstretched hand and courtesied.
“Here’s Madame Zénobie, I say; you seem to get along with her.”
Mary smiled again, looked up at the standing quadroon, and replied in a low voice:—