Toward Angela, however, Colonel Tremaine had ever been indulgence itself and had always treated her as a favored child.
After the little scene in the library, Angela returned to the study, where Richard and Lyddon sat, and told them what had happened. “I don’t know how it was,” she said, “but although I was not thinking of Neville at the time, the instant Uncle Tremaine said that about his sons whom he could in honor own, I felt that I must not sit quiet under it. It makes a great difference,” she added sagely, “when a woman is married to a man.”
“A very great difference,” answered Lyddon, who could not forbear laughing, and then growing serious he said: “You were always wanting something to happen; wonderful things have happened and will continue to happen, and the time may come when you will apply to the present the old saw, ‘Happy the country which has no history.’”
Richard then took out a letter. “I had this to-day from Isabey, who seems to have reached Richmond a few hours after I left. He is lucky enough already to have got his captaincy of artillery and has been sent to Virginia on a secret mission. He writes that he wishes to see me and is likely to arrive at any moment.”
Angela listened to this with the new sense which had come to her since the marriage ceremony between herself and Neville—the sense of analysis. She had taken such tremendous interest in Isabey and had dreamed so many idle dreams about him, decorating him with all the girlish fancies of her heart; and now Isabey, the much-talked-of, the long-expected, was nothing to her. She was still at the age when the only interest possible was a personal interest, when her own destiny she thought must be affected by every person who crossed her path.
Then she remembered that Isabey’s coming could mean nothing to her, that she could no longer steal into Richard’s room to look at Isabey’s sketches on the wall, and it gave her a slight shock. Many other things in her new position puzzled her. She did not know in the least whether she ought to be interested in Richard’s account of the raising of troops in the county, and it suddenly occurred to her that when she should join Neville, she would still be at a loss to know which side she should take. She had been red-hot for war, but quickly and even instantly had learned to sit silent when the coming conflict was spoken of before her.
A day or two after was the time when the artillery volunteers were to meet at the courthouse and elect their officers. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine sent Richard off with their blessing. He reached the courthouse, which was ten miles away, by ten o’clock in the morning. It was a day of brightness, and the old colonial courthouse and clerk’s office lay basking in the warm April sun.
A great crowd had assembled, chiefly men from eighteen to forty-five, but there were boys and graybeards present, and a few ladies. The election of officers was held viva voce, and Richard was elected, almost without a dissentient vote, captain of the battery of artillery. The enrollment was large because Richard Tremaine carried men’s bodies as well as minds with him.
When the business part of the programme was over, there was a call for a speech, that invariable concomitant of every species of business transacted in Virginia. This was responded to by Colonel Carey, who had an inveterate passion for speechmaking, inherited from a long line of speechmaking ancestors.
The colonel mounted the stone steps of the old courthouse and began with his usual preliminary, which was the declaration that he was totally unprepared for this honor and averse to public speaking, and then promptly drew from his pocket a manuscript of the speech it took him precisely three-quarters of an hour to deliver and which had been prepared for the occasion as soon as secession had become a living issue. The exordium of the colonel’s speech was that which is invariably required of every orator on Virginia soil—a tribute to the women of Virginia.