“Then, how did you know I am a Southerner?”
“By your looks, your manner of speech, your easy, kindly ways, your tenderness and humour, your firmness in the right as you see it, and, above all, the way you rose and bowed to a woman in an old, faded black dress, whom you knew to be an enemy.” “No, Madam, not an enemy now,” he said softly. “That word is out of date.”
“If we had only known you in time——”
The President accompanied her to the door with a deference of manner that showed he had been deeply touched.
“Take this letter to Mr. Stanton at once,” he said. “Some folks complain of my pardons, but it rests me after a hard day’s work if I can save some poor boy’s life. I go to bed happy, thinking of the joy I have given to those who love him.”
As the last words were spoken, a peculiar dreaminess of expression stole over his careworn face, as if a throng of gracious memories had lifted for a moment the burden of his life.