He fell again to mere musings, a self-absorbed man, while John, attracted by a squirrel’s gambols and used to the rector’s long silences, wandered near by among the pines, with a vagabond mind on this or that, and watching the alert little acrobat of the forest.  As he moved about, he recalled his first walks to the cabin with Leila and the wild thing he had said one day—­and her reply.  One ages fast, at seventeen, and now he wondered if he had been quite wise, and with the wisdom and authority of a year and a half of mental growth punished his foolish boy-past with severity of reproach.  He had failed for a time to hear, or at least to hear with attention, the low-voiced soliloquies in which Mr. Rivers sometimes indulged.  McGregor, an observant man, said that Rivers’s mind jumped from thought to thought, and that his talk had at times no connective tissue and was hard to follow.

Now he spoke louder.  “No one, John, no one sees that every new compromise compromises principles and honour.  Have you read any of the speeches of a man named Lincoln in Illinois?  He got a considerable vote in that nominating convention.”

“No, sir.”

“Then read it—­read him.  A prophet of disaster!  He says, ’A house divided against itself cannot stand.  This government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free.’  The man did not know that he was ignorantly quoting George Washington’s opinion.  It is so, and so it will be.  I would let them go their way in peace, for the sin of man-owning is ours—­was ours—­and we are to suffer for it soon or late—­a nation’s debts have to be paid, and some are paid in blood.”

The young fellow listened but had no comment ready, and indeed knew too little of the terrible questions for which time alone would have an answer to feel the full force of these awful texts.  He did say, “I will read Mr. Lincoln’s speeches.  Uncle talks to me about Kansas and slavery and compromises, but it is sometimes too much for me.”

“Yes, he will not talk of these things to your aunt, and is not willing to talk to me.  He thinks both of us are extremists.  No, I won’t walk any further.  Let us go home.”

The natural light-mindedness of a healthy lad easily disposes of the problems which disturb the older mind.  John forgot it all for a time in the pleasant interest of a letter from Leila, received a day before his uncle’s return.

“CAPE MAY, June 21st.

“MY DEAR JOHN:  Here at last I am free to write to you when I please, and I have some rather strange news; but first of Aunt Ann.  She is very well pleased and is already much better.  Uncle Jim left us to-day, and I am to have Lucy here and one of the grooms.  If only I could have you to ride with me on this splendid beach and see the great blue waves roll up like a vast army charging with white plumes and then rolling back in defeat.”—­

John paused.  This was not like Leila.  He felt in a vague way that she must be changing, and remembered the rector’s predictions.  Then he read on—­