"Who cares?" the other said aloud.
"What if he is?" asked a third.
"Then," said a gentle, graceful-looking girl, spreading her embroidery out on her lap with her slim white fingers—"then there'll be fighting."
It was given, this announcement, with the coolest matter-of-fact assurance.
"Who is going to fight?" was the next question.
The former speaker gave a glance up to see if her audience was safe, and then replied, as coolly as before,—
"My brother, for one."
"What for, Sally?"
"Do you think we are going to have these vulgar Northerners rule over us? My cousin Marshall is coming back from Europe on purpose that he may be here and be ready. I know my aunt wrote him word that she would disinherit him if he did not."
"Daisy Randolph—you are a Southerner," said one of the girls.