"The second form is correct, Mr. Ardmore. When well-bred Southern people say Rebellion they refer to the uprising of 1776 against the British oppressor."
"Good. I'm sure I shall never get them mixed. Now that you are the governor, what are you going to do first about Appleweight?"
"I've written—that is to say, papa wrote before he went away, a strong letter to Governor Osborne, complaining that Appleweight was hiding in South Carolina and running across the state line to rob and murder people in North Carolina. Papa told Governor Osborne that he must break up the Appleweight crowd or he would do something about it himself. It's a splendid letter; you would think that even a coward like Governor Osborne would do something after getting such a letter."
"Didn't he answer the letter?"
"Answer it? He never got it! Papa didn't send it; that's the reason! Papa's the kindest man in the world, and he must have been afraid of hurting Governor Osborne's feelings. He wrote the letter, expecting to send it, but when he went off to New Orleans he told Mr. Bassford to hold it till he got back. He had even signed it—you can read it if you like."
It was undoubtedly a vigorous epistle, and Ardmore felt the thrill of its rhetorical sentences as he read. The official letter paper on which it was typewritten, and the signature of William Dangerfield, governor of North Carolina, affixed in a bold hand, were sobering in themselves. The dignity and authority of one of the sovereign American states was represented here, and he handed the paper back to Miss Dangerfield as tenderly as though it had been the original draft of Magna Charta.
"It's a corker, all right."
"I don't much like the way it ends. It says, right here"—and she bent forward and pointed to the place under criticism—"it says, 'Trusting to your sense of equity, and relying upon a continuance of the traditional friendship between your state and mine, I am, sir, awaiting your reply, very respectfully, your obedient servant.' Now, I wouldn't trust to his sense of anything, and that traditional friendship business is just fluffy nonsense, and I wouldn't be anybody's obedient servant. I decided when I wasn't more than fifteen years old, with a lot of other girls in our school, that when we got married we'd never say obey, and we never have, though only three of our class are married yet, but we're all engaged."