Mrs. Lee was delighted to hear the debate, and Carrington was delighted to sit through it by her side, and to exchange running comments with her on the speeches and the speakers.
“Have you ever met the Senator?” asked she.
“I have acted several times as counsel before his committees. He is an excellent chairman, always attentive and generally civil.”
“Where was he born?”
“The family is a New England one, and I believe respectable. He came, I think, from some place in the Connecticut Valley, but whether Vermont, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, I don't know.”
“Is he an educated man?”
“He got a kind of classical education at one of the country colleges there. I suspect he has as much education as is good for him. But he went West very soon after leaving college, and being then young and fresh from that hot-bed of abolition, he threw himself into the anti-slavery movement in Illinois, and after a long struggle he rose with the wave. He would not do the same thing now.”
“Why not?”
“He is older, more experienced, and not so wise. Besides, he has no longer the time to wait. Can you see his eyes from here? I call them Yankee eyes.”
“Don't abuse the Yankees,” said Mrs. Lee; “I am half Yankee myself.”