"What is your name?" said he.
"Jenny Halliburtt."
"Your father, if I remember rightly the address on the letters, is he not from Boston?"
"Yes, sir."
"And a Northerner is thus in a southern town in the thickest of the war?"
"My father is a prisoner; he was at Charleston when the first shot of the Civil War was fired, and the troops of the Union driven from Fort Sumter by the Confederates. My father's opinions exposed him to the hatred of the slavist part, and by the order of General Beauregard he was imprisoned. I was then in England, living with a relation who has just died, and left alone, with no help but that of Crockston, our faithful servant, I wished to go to my father and share his prison with him."
"What was Mr. Halliburtt, then?" asked James Playfair.
"A loyal and brave journalist," replied Jenny proudly, "one of the noblest editors of the Tribune, and the one who was the boldest in defending the cause of the negroes."
"An Abolitionist," cried the Captain angrily; "one of those men who, under the vain pretence of abolishing slavery, have deluged their country with blood and ruin."
"Sir!" replied Jenny Halliburtt, growing pale, "you are insulting my father; you must not forget that I stand alone to defend him."