“I don’t think slavery has much to do with the question, really,” he said, “not even with Mr. Lincoln.”  The silent surprise that followed the boy’s embarrassed statement ended in a gasp of astonishment when Harry leaned across the table and said, hotly: 

“Slavery has everything to do with the question.”

The Major looked bewildered; the General frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again: 

“The struggle was written in the Constitution.  The framers evaded it.  Logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically blame another for the way he goes.”

“No more politics now, gentlemen,” said the General quickly.  “We will join the ladies.  Harry,” he added, with some sternness, “lead the way!”

As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass.  His face was pale and his lips trembled.

“May I propose a toast, General Dean?”

“Why, certainly,” said the General, kindly.

“I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now, and might have died there for all I know—­my friend and, thank God! my kinsman—­Major Buford.”

It was irregular and hardly in good taste, but the boy had waited till the ladies were gone, and it touched the Major that he should want to make such a public acknowledgment that there should be no false colors in the flag he meant henceforth to bear.

The startled guests drank blindly to the confused Major, though they knew not why, but as the lads disappeared the lawyer asked: 

“Who is that boy, Major?”

Outside, the same question had been asked among the ladies and the same story told.  The three girls remembered him vaguely, they said, and when Chad reappeared, in the eyes of the poetess at least, the halo of romance floated above his head.

She was waiting for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him.  Old Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind her, Snowball, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome.  The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms mysteriously twined about one anther’s waists, and the poetess walked down toward them with the three lads, Richard Hunt following.  Chad could not know how it happened, but, a moment later, Dan was walking away with Nellie Hunt one way; Harry with Elizabeth Morgan the other; the Lieutenant had Margaret alone, and Miss Overstreet was leading him away, raving meanwhile about the beauty of field and sky.  As they went toward the gate he could not help flashing one look toward the pair under the fir tree.  An amused smile was playing under the Lieutenant’s beautiful mustache, his eyes were dancing with mischief, and Margaret was blushing with anything else than displeasure.

“Oho!” he said, as Chad and his companion passed on.  “Sits the wind in that corner?  Bless me, if looks could kill, I’d have a happy death here at your feet, Mistress Margaret.  See the young man!  It’s the second time he has almost slain me.”