three hours since that, and I was thirsty.  I could see a house back in the trees as we came to the ford—­a beautiful old house—­the kind you see a lot of in the South—­high white pillars—­dignified and aristocratic.  It seemed to be quiet and safe, so we trotted up the drive, the eleven of us.  The front door was open, and I jumped off my horse and ran up the steps and stood in the doorway.  There were four or five people in the hall, and they’d seen us coming and were scared.  A nice old lady was lying back in a chair, as pale as ashes, with her hand to her heart, gasping ninety to the second, and two or three negroes stood around her with their eyes rolling.  And right in the middle of the place a red-headed girl in a white dress was bending over a grizzled old negro man who was locking a large travelling-bag.  As cool as a cucumber that girl was.”

The General stopped and considered.

“I wish I could describe the scene the way I saw it—­I remember exactly.  It was a big, square hall running through from front to back, and the back door was open, and you saw a garden with box hedges, and woods behind it.  Stairs went up each side the hall and a balcony ran around the second story, with bedrooms opening off it.  There was a high, oval window at the back over the balcony, and the sun poured through.

“The girl finished locking her bag as if she hadn’t noticed scum of the earth like us, and then she deliberately picked up a bunch of long white flowers that lay by the bag—­lilies, I think you call them—­and stood up, and looked right past me, as if she was struck with the landscape, and didn’t see me.  She was a tall girl, and when she stood straight the light from the back window just hit her hair and shone through the loose part of it—­there was a lot, and it was curly.  I give you my word that, as she stood there and looked calmly beyond me, in her white dress, with the stalk of flowers over her shoulder, and the sun turning that wonderful red-gold hair into a halo—­I give you my word she was a perfect picture of a saint out of a stained-glass window in a church.  But she didn’t act like one.”

The General was seized with sudden, irresistible laughter.  He sobered quickly.

“I took one look at the vision, and I knew it was all up with me.  Talk about love at first sight—­before she ever spoke a word I—­well.”  He pulled up the sentence as if it were a horse.  “I snatched off my cap and I said, said I, ‘I’m very sorry to disturb you,’ just as politely as I knew how, but all the answer she gave me was to glance across at the old lady.  Then she went find put her arm around her as she lay back gasping in a great curved chair.

“‘Don’t be afraid, Aunt Virginia,’ she said.  ’Nothing shall hurt you.  I can manage this man.’

“The way she said ‘this man’ was about as contemptuous as they make ’em.  I guess she was right, too—­I guess she could.  She turned her head toward me, but did not look at me.