He laughed, and a shadow suddenly swept his face:
"I wonder, Miss Winter, if any of us will live a normal life after to-day?"
"You've seen the Rail-splitter, our new President?"
"No, I didn't wait in the Senate Chamber. I came out here to make sure of my seat beside you——"
"To hear every word of the Inaugural, of course," Betty broke in.
"Yes, of course——" he paused and the faintest suggestion of a smile flickered about the corners of his eyes. "Ned told me you had three good seats. I am anxious to hear what he says—but more anxious to see him when he says it. I can read his Inaugural, but I want to see the soul of the man behind its conventional phrases——"
"He'll use conventional phrases?"
"Certainly. They all do. But no man ever came to the Presidential chair with as little confidence back of him. The Abolitionists have already begun to denounce him before he has taken the oath of office. The rank and file of the party that elected him are not Abolitionists and never for a moment believed that the Southern people were in earnest when they threatened Secession during the campaign. We thought it bluff. To say that the whole North and West is panic-stricken is the simple truth.
"Horace Greeley and the Tribune are for Secession.
"'Let our erring sisters go!' the editor tells the millions who hang on his words as the oracle of heaven.