"Where shall it be?" she asked, readily, moving toward him. "The garden of the gods?"
"The garden of the goddesses, you mean, if it is the rose-field."
"That's true; a god's garden would be filled with thorns and warlike blossoms."
"I don't know; a rose-garden grew the wars of the houses of York and
Lancaster."
"Do you remember the scene in Shakespeare where Bolingbroke and Gaunt pluck the roses?"
"Quite well. There is always something pathetic to me in the fables historians invent to excuse or palliate, or, perhaps it would be juster to say, make tolerable, the stained pages of the past. It is brought doubly nearer and distinct by this miserable war, and the strange fate that has fallen upon us—to be the guests of a family whose hopes are fixed upon what would make us miserable if it ever happened."
"It never will. That's the reason I listen with pity to the childish
vauntings of these kind people. They have, you see, no conception of the
Northern people—no idea of the deep-seated purpose that moves the
States as one man to stifle this monstrous attempt."
They walked on in silence a few paces, and Kate continued: "I don't know how you feel, Mr. Sprague, but I am wretched here. I feel like a traitor, receiving such kindness, treated with such guileless confidence, and yet my heart is filled with everything they abhor. It is not so hard for you, because you and Vincent have been close friends. He has made your house his home, but I certainly feel that Wesley and I should go elsewhere, now that he is able to be about."
"Does Wesley feel this—this embarrassment?"
"Passionately. He said, last night, he felt like a sneak. He would fly in an instant, if he could see any possible way to our lines."