"Perhaps—yes—perhaps you are right." And facing the wild norther she left him at his door and went homewards with a new burden of thought on her mind.
The winter broke up and late in May Penhallow left home on business. He wrote from Philadelphia:
"My dear Ann: Trade is dead, money still locked up, and the railways hesitating to give orders for much-needed rails. I have one small order, which will keep us going, but will hardly pay.
"I never talk of the political disorder, but now you will feel as I do a certain dismay at the action of the Vicksburg Convention in the interest of the slave States. Not all were represented—Tennessee and Florida voted against the resolution that all State and Federal laws prohibiting the African slave trade ought to be repealed. South Carolina to my surprise divided its vote; there were forty for, nineteen against this resolution. It seems made to exasperate the North and build up the Republican party. I who am simply for the Union most deeply regret this action.
"I want Leila to meet me here to-day week. We will take the steamer and go to West Point, let her see the place, and bring John home for his month of furlough.
"I have talked here to the Mayor and other moderate Union men, and find them more hopeful than I of a peaceful ending.
"Yours always,
"JAMES PENHALLOW."
CHAPTER XVII
When Leila sat upon the upper deck of the great Hudson River steamer, she was in a condition of excitement natural to an imaginative nature unused to travel. Her mind was like a fresh canvas ready for the hand of the artist. She was wondering at times what John Penhallow would look like after over two years of absence and hardly heard the murmur of talk around her, and was as unconscious of the interested glances of the young men attracted by the tall figure standing in the bow as the great river opened before her.