Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"Oh, papa, don't!" implored Miss Lillie. "You talk most horridly when you get started on certain subjects."

"My conversation isn't half pungent enough to do justice to the perfume of the subject," insisted the Doctor. "When I speak or try to speak of that McAllister, and of similar people to be met there and everywhere, I am obliged to admit the inadequacy of language. Nothing but the last trump can utter a sound appropriate to such personages."

"But Colonel McAllister is a very respectable middle-aged planter now, papa," said Lillie.

"Respectable! Oh, my child! do not persist in talking as if you were still in the nursery. Saint Paul, Pascal, Wilberforce couldn't have remained respectable if they had been slaveholding planters."

To Colonel Carter personally the Doctor was perfectly civil, as he was to every one with whom he was obliged to come in contact, including the reprobated McAllister and his similars. Even had he been of a combative disposition, or been twice as prejudiced against Carter as he was, he could not have brought himself in these days and with his present loyal enthusiasm, to discourteously entreat an officer who wore the United States uniform and who had bled in the cause of country against treason. Moreover he felt a certain degree of good-will towards our military roué, as being the patron of his particular friend Colburne. Of this young man he seemed almost as fond as if he were his father, without, however, entertaining the slightest thought of gaining him for a son-in-law. I never knew, nor read of, not even in the most unnatural novels, an American father who was a matchmaker.

So the autumn and half the winter passed away, without any one falling in love, unless it might be Colburne. It needed all his good sense to keep him from it; or rather to keep him from paying Miss Ravenel what are called significant attentions; for as to his being in love, I admit it, although he did not. To use old-fashioned language, alarming in its directness and strength of meaning, I suppose he would have courted her if she would have let him. But there was something in the young lady's manner towards him which kept him at arm's length; which had the charm of friendship, indeed, but no faintest odor of even the possibility of love, just as certain flowers have beauty but no perfume; which said to him very gently but also very firmly, "Mr. Colburne, you had better not be in a hurry."

At times he was under sudden and violent temptation. The trusting Doctor placed Lillie under his charge to go to one or two concerts and popular lectures, following therein the simple and virtuous ways of New Boston, where young ladies have a freedom which in larger and wickeder cities is only accorded to married women. On the way to and from these amusements, Lillie's hand resting lightly on his arm, and the obscurity of the streets veiling whatever reproof or warning might sparkle in her eyes, his heart was more urgent and his soul less timid than usual.

"I have only one subject of regret in going to the war," he once said; "and that is that I shall not see you for a long time, and may never see you again."

There was a magnetic tremulousness in his voice which thrilled through Miss Ravenel and made it difficult for her to breathe naturally. For a few seconds she could not answer, any more than he could continue. She felt as we do in dreams when we seem to stand on the edge of a gulf wavering whether we shall fall backward into safety or forward into the unknown. It was one of the perilous and decisive moments of the young lady's life; but the end of it was that she recovered self-possession enough to speak before he could rally to pursue his advantage. Ten seconds more of silence might have resulted in an engagement ring.

"What a hard heart you have!" she laughed. "No greater cause of regret than that! And here you are, going to lay waste my country, and perhaps burn up my house. You abolitionists are dreadful."