“She’s Miss Maude De Vere, bred and born in the old North State, somewhars near Tar Run.” Aunt Hetty said “Her father was killed at first Bull Run, and then her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle off toward Tennessee in de hills. She’s got an awful sight of money, and heaps of niggers,—lazy, no count critters,—who jest do nothing from morn till night. She and Miss Nettie, Mars’r Tunbridge’s gal, was great friends at school, and Miss Maude was here when she died, and has been here by spells ever since. Young mars’r think she mighty nice, but dis chile don’t ’zactly know what Miss Maude do think of him. Reckon he’s too short, or too sessionary to suit her.”
This was Hetty’s account of the young lady, who at that very moment was listening with a defiant look upon her face to Arthur Tunbridge’s remonstrance against what he termed her treasonable principles.
“They will get you into trouble yet. The war is not over, as some would have you think. The North is greatly divided. Be warned of me, Maude, and do not run such risks as you do by openly avowing your Union sentiments. Think what it would be to me if harm should befall you, Maude.”
Arthur spoke very gently now, while a deep flush mounted to his beardless cheek, but met with no reflection from Maude De Vere’s face. Only her eyes kindled and grew blacker, if possible, as she listened to him, first with scorn, when he spoke of treason, and then with pity when he spoke of himself, and the pain it would cause him if harm should come to her.
Maude knew very well the nature of the feelings with which her kinsman, young Arthur Tunbridge, regarded her. At first she had been disposed to laugh at him, and his preference for an Amazon, as she styled herself; but Arthur had proved by actual measurement that in point of height he excelled her by half an inch, while the register showed that in point of age he had the advantage of her by more than four years, though Maude seemed the elder of the two.
“Don’t be foolish, Arthur, nor entertain fears for me,” she said. “I am not afraid of Gen. Lee’s entire army, nor Grant’s either, for that matter. My home at Uncle Paul’s has been beset alternately by either party, and I have held a loaded pistol at the heads of both Federal and Confederate, when one was for leading away Charlie’s favorite horse, and the other for coaxing off old Lois to cook the company’s rations. No, I am not afraid, and if necessary I will guide that poor wretch down in Hetty’s cabin safely to Tennessee.”
Arthur’s face grew dark at once, and he said, half angrily:
“Maude, let that man alone; let them all alone. It is not womanly for you to evince so much interest in such people. For your sake I’ll help this one get away, but that must be the last; and remember, it is done for your sake, with the expectation of reward. Do you consent to the terms?”
Maude’s nostrils quivered as she drew her tall figure to its full height, and answered back:
“I could not prize the love I had to buy. No, Arthur; I have told you once that you are only my brother, just as Nettie was my sister. Believe me, Arthur, I cannot give you what you ask.”