“Are you dead again?” she asked demurely.
“Well, as the Irishman said in answer to his mate’s question when he fell off the house, ‘not dead—but spacheless.’”
He was quick to see the opening her question with its memories had made, and took advantage of it.
“Look here, Miss Elsie, you’re too honest, independent, and candid to play hide-and-seek with me. I want to ask you a plain question. You’ve been trying to pick a quarrel of late. What have I done?”
“Nothing. It has simply come to me that our lives are far apart. The gulf between us is real and very deep. Your father was but yesterday a slaveholder——”
Ben grinned:
“Yes, your slave-trading grandfather sold them to us the day before.”
Elsie blushed and bristled for a fight.
“You won’t mind if I give you a few lessons in history, will you?” Ben asked softly.
“Not in the least. I didn’t know that Southerners studied history,” she answered, with a toss of her head.