“Why, Allan Garland!”
“This is not my picture.”
“I shouldn’t think it was.”
Thereupon Mr. Raynes began to laugh in the most immoderate manner; opening his mouth wide enough to take in a very small load of hay, and shaking his sides in the most extraordinary style.
“What are you laughing at, pa?” demanded Sue, blushing up to the eyes, as though she already felt the force of some keenly satirical remark which was struggling for expression in the mouth of the farmer.
“To think you have been looking at that picture three times a day for a year, studying, gazing at it; kissing it, for aught I know; and then to find out that it is not Allan after all!” roared the Virginia farmer between the outbreaks of his mirth. “I haven’t done anything but groan since the war began, and it does me good to laugh. I haven’t had a jolly time before since the battle of Bull Run, as the Yankees call it.”
“You are the most absurd pa in Virginia. I didn’t look at it three times a day, I never studied it, and I’m sure I never kissed it. No wonder Allan wants to get away, when he finds what an absurd girl you make me out to be. You think I’m a fool, don’t you, Allan?”
“I do not, by any means. I’m sure, if I had your picture, I shouldn’t have been ashamed to look at it three times a day,” replied Somers, gallantly coming to the rescue of the maiden. “But, really, my Virginia patriarch,” he added, using an expression which he had found in the correspondence in his pocket, “I must tear myself away.”
“You seem to be glad enough to go,” pouted Sue.
“Sorry to go, but compelled by the duty I owe my country to leave you.”