“The most terrible holocaust in history until the World War,” King-lo added.
“But slavery had to be stamped out, Lo!”
“It usually dies a natural death,” the husband insisted, “as it has in your own British Empire, and a far pleasanter death for all concerned, the slaves included. We have seen a pleasant and beneficent side of slavery in China, as I believe the South did——”
“Miss Townsend has poisoned your mind!” his wife told him.
“Not at all,” he denied. “Facts are facts—that’s all. And the war between the North and the South had nothing to do with slavery. That was an after-thought, dragged in for political purposes, necessary, perhaps, and certainly good strong propaganda.”
“Sên King-lo! I don’t believe it!”
Sên laughed. “You didn’t specialize in American history during your earnest scholastic career, did you? However, as your own uncrowned laureate has said several times, that’s another story.”
“Yes—do get on about Miss Julia.”
“Lee—young Theodore Lee—worked his way to South America somehow. He had but little luck there, but he saved enough to come home on a visit after some years, and he spent a month at Rosehill when Miss Julia was about sixteen.”
“Who told you all that?” Ruby interrupted him again.