“Well, then, Lord High Chancellor, tell us the vital articles in the Montgomery document that have inspired you to arm Mars for the conflict, plunge millions into strife and thousands into hades, as Socrates would have said, employing his method?” Jack continued derisively.

“Our Constitution assures us the eternal right to own our own property.”

“Slaves?”

“Yes.”

“No one denied you that right, so far as the law went, under the old; it was only the justice, the humanity, that was questioned.  The right would have endured a hundred years, perhaps forever, if you had kept still—­”

“Come, Jack, I won’t listen to politics,” Olympia cried, with a warning look.

“No, the time for talk is past; it is battle, and God defend the right!” Rosa said, solemnly.

“And you may be sure he will,” Jack added, softly, as though to himself.

“But we’ve got far away from the crying and the babies,” Vincent began, when Jack interrupted, fervently: 

“Thank Heaven!”

“You monster!” the two girls cried in a breath.

“No, I can’t conceive a sillier paradox than ’A babe in the house is a well-spring of joy.’  A woman must have written it first.  Now, my idea of perfect happiness for a house is to have two wounded warriors like Vincent and me, tractable, amiable, always ready to join in rational conversation and make love if necessary, providing we’re encouraged.”

“Really, Olympia, your Northern men are not what I fancied,” Rosa cried, with a laugh.

“What did you fancy them?”

“Oh, ever so different, from this—­this saucy fellow—­modest, timid, shy; needing ever so much encouragement to—­to—­”

“Claim their due?” Jack added, slyly.

“Well, there is one that doesn’t require much encouragement to claim everything that comes in his way,” Rosa retorts, and Olympia adds: 

“And to spare my feelings you won’t name him now.”

“Exactly,” said Rosa.

“How touching!” exclaimed Vincent.

“I left all my blood to enrich your soil, or I’d blush,” replied Jack.

“Oh, no; it won’t enrich the soil; it will bring out a crop of Johnny Jump-ups, a weed that we don’t relish in the South,” retorted Rosa.

“Ah, Jack, you’re hit there!—­Rosa, I’m proud of you.  This odious Yankee needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is conceited in his own impudence,” and Vincent exploded in shouts of laughter.

“I fear you’re not a botanist, Miss Rosa.  It’s ‘Jack in the pulpit’ that will spring from Northern blood, and they’ll preach such truths that the very herbage will bring the lesson of liberty and toleration to you.”

“What is this very serious discussion, my children?” Mrs. Atterbury said, beaming sweetly upon the group.  “I couldn’t imagine what had started Vincent in such boisterous laughter; and now, that I come, Mr. Jack is as serious as we were at school when Madame Clarice told us of our sins.”