"But you gave it to me to give to him—when you threw the Dally out of the window."
"And do you know what the red fluid was?"
"No. It did him good. It was just as powerful as the Dally. Consequently it must have been a drug."
"It was pure water, slightly colored. That was all, upon my honor—as we say down south. It used to amuse me to see you drop it according to prescription—five drops for a dose—very particular not to give him six. He might have drunk the vial full."
"Papa," said Lillie when she had fully realized this awful deception, "you have a great many sins to repent of."
"Poisoning my own grandchild is not one of them, thank Heaven!"
"But suppose Ravvie had become really sick?" she suggested more seriously.
"Ah! what a clear conscience I should have had! Nobody could have laid it to me."
"How healthy, and strong, and big he is?" was her next observation. "He will be like you. I would bet anything that he will be six feet high."
Ravenel laughed at a bet which would have to wait some sixteen or eighteen years for a decision, and said it reminded him of a South Carolinian who offered to wager that in the year two thousand slavery would prevail the world over.