"Well," said General Garwood in an encouraging tone, "I have no doubt it is a very interesting book. I have heard of it before. Fetch me a copy when you come to Azalia again."
Goolsby smiled an unctuous and knowing smile. "Maybe you think I ain't a-comin'," he exclaimed, with the air of a man who has invented a joke that he relishes. "Well, sir, you're getting the wrong measure. I was down in 'Zalia Monday was a week, and I'm a-goin' down week after next. Fact is," continued Goolsby, rather sheepishly, "'Zalia is a mighty nice place. Gener'l, do you happen to know Miss Louisa Hornsby? Of course you do! Well, sir, you might go a week's journey in the wildwood, as the poet says, and not find a handsomer gal then that. She's got style from away back."
"Why, yes!" exclaimed the general in a tone of hearty congratulation, "of course I know Miss Lou. She is a most excellent young lady. And so the wind sits in that quarter? Your blushes, Goolsby, are a happy confirmation of many sweet and piquant rumors."
Goolsby appeared to be very much embarrassed. He moved about uneasily in his seat, searched in all his pockets for something or other that wasn't there, and made a vain effort to protest. He grew violently red in the face, and the color gleamed through his closely cropped hair.
"Oh, come now, gener'l!" he exclaimed. "Oh, pshaw! Why—oh, go 'way!"
His embarrassment was so great, and seemed to border so closely on epilepsy, that the general was induced to offer him a cigar and invite him into the smoking apartment. As General Garwood and Goolsby passed out, Helen Eustis drew a long breath.
"It is worth the trouble of a long journey to behold such a spectacle," she declared. Her aunt regarded her curiously. "Who would have thought it?" she went on—"a Southern secessionist charged with affability, and a book-agent radiant with embarrassment!"
"He is a coarse, ridiculous creature," said Miss Tewksbury sharply.
"The affable general, Aunt Harriet?"
"No, child; the other."