“Indeed!” He was not altogether displeased.  “I am sorry for you, Ann, as their sister.”

“And as a man, you are not!  Where will it all end?  There is neither charity nor reason at the North.  I am disturbed for our country.”

“You ask where it will all end.  Where will it end?  God alone knows.  Let us at least wait quietly the course of events we cannot control.  I at least try to be reasonable.”  He left her standing in tears, for which he had no comfort in thought or word.  Over all the land, North and South, there were such differences of opinion between wife and husband, brothers, friends and kinsmen.  As he stood at the door about to ride to the mills he looked back and heard her delayed comment.

“One moment, James—­”

“Oh, what is the matter?” cried Leila at the foot of the stairs.  To see Ann Penhallow in tears was strange indeed.

Her uncle standing with his hand on his wife’s shoulder had just spoken.  Turning to Leila, he said:  “Your aunt and I have had some unpleasant news from your uncles in Baltimore—­a political quarrel.”

“I knew it in the spring, Uncle Jim.”

The girl’s thoughtful reticence surprised him.  Neither to him nor to Ann had she said a word of this family feud.

“Thank you, Leila,” murmured her aunt.  The Squire wondered why, as her aunt added, “I am greatly troubled.  We have always been a most united family; but, dear, this—­this has brought home to me, as nothing else has, the breaking up of the ties which bound the South and North together.  It is only the sign of worse things to come.”

“But, Ann,” said Penhallow, “I must say”—­A sharp grip on his arm by Leila’s hand stopped him.  He checked himself in time—­“it is all very sad, but neither you nor I can help it.”

“That is too true, James.  I should not have said what I did.  I want to see one of the men at the mills.  His children are ill, his wife is in great distress.”

“I will drive you myself this morning.  I will send Dixy away and order the gig.”

“Thank you; I shall like that, James.”

Meanwhile Leila rode away, having in a moment of tactful interference made her influence felt.  She was well aware of it and smiled as she walked her horse down the avenue, murmuring,

“I suppose I shall catch it from Uncle Jim.”  And then, “No, he will be glad I pinched him, but he did look cross for a moment.”  No word of the family dissension reached John in their ever cheerful letters.

On a wild windy afternoon in February, the snow falling heavily, Leila on her way to the village rang at the Rector’s door.  Getting no answer, she went in and passing through the front room knocked at the library door.

“Come in.”  Rivers was at his table in a room littered with books and newspapers.  The gentle smile of his usual greeting was missing.  She saw at once that he was in one of his moods of melancholy—­rare of late.  Her eyes quick to see when she was interested noted that where he sat there was neither book nor paper in front of him.  He rose as she entered, tall, stooping, lean, and so thin-featured that his large eyes were the more notable.