"No, I didn't know it. This looks more like a welcome, though!" Lysander began to be mollified. "There, there! don't smother a fellow! One kiss is as good as fifty. The master is out, then? Anybody in the house?"
"No, I'm so thankful! It seems quite providential! O, dearie, dearie, sonny dearie! I'm so glad to see you agin!"
"Come! none of your sonny dearies! it makes me sick! Strike a light, and get me some supper, can't you?"
"Yes, my boy, with all my heart! This is the happiest day I've seen——"
"Ah, what's happened to-day?" said Lysander, treating with levity his mother's blissful confession.
"I mean, this night! to have you back again! How could I mistake you for that dreadful schoolmaster!" Here her trembling fingers struck a match.
"Draw the curtains," said Lysander, hastily executing his own order, as the blue sputter kindled up into a flame that lighted the room. "It ain't quite time for me to be seen here yet."
"Where did you come from? What are you here for? O, my dear, dear Lysie!" (she gazed at him affectionately), "you ain't in no great danger, be you?"
"That depends. Soon as Tennessee secedes, I shall be safe enough. I'm going to have a commission in the Confederate army, and that'll be protection from anything that might happen on account of old scores. I'm going to raise a company in this very place, and let the law touch me if it can!"
He tossed his cap into a corner, and sprawled upon a chair before the stove, at which his devoted mother was already blowing her breath away in the endeavor to kindle a blaze. She stopped blowing to gape at his good news, turning up at him her low, skinny forehead, narrow nose, and close-set, winking eyes.