Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

She waited for a reply to her argument, but Colburne was too much crushed to offer one. He shirked his honest duty as an interlocutor by saying, "Mrs. Larue, this is a novel idea to me, and I must have time for consideration before I accept it."

She laughed without a sign of embarrassment, and changed the subject.

But Mrs. Larue was not the only cause which prevented Colburne's visit from being a monotony of happiness. He soon discovered that there was an understanding between Colonel Carter and Miss Ravenel; not an engagement, perhaps, but certainly an inner circle of confidences and sentiments into which he was not allowed to enter. In this matter Lillie was more open and legible than her lover. She so adored her hero because of the deadly perils which he had affronted, and the honor which he had borne from among their flame and smoke, that she could not always conceal, and sometimes did not care to conceal, her admiration. Not that she ever expressed it by endearments or fondling words: no, that would have been a coarse audacity of which her maidenly nature was incapable: but there were rare glances of irrepressible meaning, surprised out of her very soul, which came like revelations. When she asked Colburne to tell her the whole story of Georgia Landing, he guessed easily what she most wanted to hear. To please her, he made Carter the hero of the epic, related how impetuous he was during the charge, how superbly cool as soon as it was over, how he sat his horse and waved his sabre and gave his orders. To be sure, the enthusiastic youth took a soldierly pleasure in the history; he was honestly proud of his commander, and he loved to tell the tale of his own only battle. But notwithstanding this slight pleasure, notwithstanding that the Doctor treated him with even tender consideration, and that Mrs. Larue was often amusing as well as embarrassing, he did not enjoy his visit. This mysterious cloud which encompassed the Colonel and Miss Ravenel, separating them from all others, cast upon him a shadow of melancholy. In the first place, of course, it was painful to suspect that he had lost this charming girl; in the second, he grieved on her account, not believing it possible that with that man for a husband she could be permanently happy. Carter was a brave soldier, an able officer, a person of warm and naturally kind impulses; but gentlemen of such habits as his were not considered good matches where Colburne had formed his opinions. No man, whatever his talents, could win a professorship in Winslow University, or occupy a respectable niche in New Boston society, who rarely went to church, who drank freely and openly, who had been seen to gamble, who swore like a trooper, and who did other things which the Colonel had been known to do. All this time he was so over-modest by nature, and so oppressed by an acquired sense of soldierly subordination, that he never seriously thought of setting himself up as a rival against the Colonel. Perhaps I am tedious in my analysis of the Captain's opinions, motives and sentiments. The truth is that I take a sympathetic interest in him, believing him to be a representative young man of my native New England, and that I consider him a better match for Miss Ravenel than this southern "high-toned" gentleman whom she insists upon having.

While Colburne was feeling so strongly with regard to Lillie, could she not devote a sentiment to him? Not many; she had not time; she was otherwise occupied. So selfishly wrapped up in her own affections was she, that, until Mrs. Larue laughingly suggested it, she never thought of his being jealous or miserable on account of her. Then she hoped that he did not care much for her, and was really sorry for him if he did. What a horrible fate it seemed to her to be disappointed in love! She remembered that she had once liked him very much indeed; but so she did even yet, she added, with a comfortable closing of her eyes to all change in the nature of the sentiment; and perhaps he only fancied her in a similar Platonic fashion. Once she had cut out of a paper, and put away in so safe a place that now she could not find it, a little poem which he had written, and which was only interesting because he was the author. She blushed as she called her folly to mind, and resolved that it should never be known to any one. It is curious that she was a little vexed with Colburne because of this reminiscence, and felt that it more than repaid him for all the secret devotion which he might have lavished on her.

"My leave of absence has not been as pleasant as I hoped it would be," he once had the courage to remark.

"Why not?" she asked absent-mindedly; for she was thinking of her own heart affairs.

"I fear that I have lost some sympathies which I once——"

Here he checked himself, not daring to confess how much he had once hoped. With a sudden comprehension of his meaning Lillie colored intensely, after her usual fashion on startling occasions, and glanced about the room in search of some other subject of conversation.

"I have a sense of being a stranger in the family," he explained after a moment of painful silence.

She might surely have said something kind here, but she was too conscientious or too much embarrassed to do it. She made one of those efforts which women are capable of, and sailed out of the difficulty on the wings of a laugh.