"The struggle was written in the Constitution. The framers evaded it. Logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically blame another for the way he goes."
"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the General quickly. "We will join the ladies. Harry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the way!"
As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass. His face was pale and his lips trembled.
"May I propose a toast, General Dean?"
"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.
"I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now, and might have died there for all I know—my friend and, thank God! my kinsman—Major Buford."
It was irregular and hardly in good taste, but the boy had waited till the ladies were gone, and it touched the Major that he should want to make such a public acknowledgment that there should be no false colors in the flag he meant henceforth to bear.
The startled guests drank blindly to the confused Major, though they knew not why, but as the lads disappeared the lawyer asked:
"Who is that boy, Major?"
Outside, the same question had been asked among the ladies and the same story told. The three girls remembered him vaguely, they said, and when Chad reappeared, in the eyes of the poetess at least, the halo of romance floated above his head.