"Certainly he will do all for Florry that he would do for his own children, but he may not long be able to save his own family from the horrors of war."
"Do you think she will be in any actual danger, Horatio?"
"I have no doubt she will be as safe at Glenfield, if the conflict were raging there, as she would be at Bonnydale under the same circumstances. From the nature of the case, the burden of the fighting, the havoc and desolation, will be within the Southern States, and few, if any, of the battle-fields will be on Northern soil, or at least as far north as our home."
"From what I have seen of the people near the residence of your brother, they are neither brutes nor savages," added the lady.
"No more than the people of the North; but war rouses the brute nature of most men, and there will be brutes and savages on both sides, from the very nature of the case."
"In his recent letters, I mean those that came before we sailed from home, Homer did not seem to take part with either side in the political conflict; and in those which came to us at the Azores and Bermuda, he did not say a single word to indicate whether he is a secessionist, or in favor of the Union. Do you know how he stands, Horatio?"
"My means of knowing are the same as yours, and I can be no wiser than you are on this point, though I have my opinion," replied Captain Passford.
"What is your opinion?"
"That he is as truly a Union man as I am."
"I am glad that he is."