But Virginia did not raise her eyes from her plate.  A miraculous intervention came through Mrs. Brinsmade.

“There might have been an accident, Jack,” said that lady, with concern.  “Send Nicodemus over to Mrs. Russell’s at once to inquire.  You know that Mr. Brice is a Northerner, and may not be able to ride.”

Jack laughed.

“He rides like a dragoon, mother,” said he.  “I don’t know where he picked it up.”

“The reason I mentioned him,” said Mr. Brinsmade, lifting the blanket sheet and adjusting his spectacles, “was because his name caught my eye in this paper.  His speech last night at the Library Hall is one of the few sensible Republican speeches I have read.  I think it very remarkable for a man as young as he.”  Mr. Brinsmade began to read:  “’While waiting for the speaker of the evening, who was half an hour late, Mr. Tiefel rose in the audience and called loudly for Mr. Brice.  Many citizens in the hall were astonished at the cheering which followed the mention of this name.  Mr. Brice is a young lawyer with a quiet manner and a determined face, who has sacrificed much to the Party’s cause this summer.  He was introduced by Judge Whipple, in whose office he is.  He had hardly begun to speak before he had the ear of everyone in the house.  Mr. Brice’s personality is prepossessing, his words are spoken sharply, and he has a singular emphasis at times which seems to drive his arguments into the minds of his hearers.  We venture to say that if party orators here and elsewhere were as logical and temperate as Mr. Brice; if, like him, they appealed to reason rather than to passion, those bitter and lamentable differences which threaten our country’s peace might be amicably adjusted.’  Let me read what he said.”

But he was interrupted by the rising of Virginia.  A high color was on the girl’s face as she said: 

“Please excuse me, Mrs. Brinsmade, I must go and get ready.”

“But you’ve eaten nothing, my dear.”

Virginia did not reply.  She was already on the stairs.

“You ought not have read that, Pa,” Mr. Jack remonstrated; “you know that she detests Yankees”

CHAPTER XIV

The breach becomes too wide
Abraham Lincoln!

At the foot of Breed’s Hill in Charlestown an American had been born into the world, by the might of whose genius that fateful name was sped to the uttermost parts of the nation.  Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.  And the moan of the storm gathering in the South grew suddenly loud and louder.

Stephen Brice read the news in the black headlines and laid down the newspaper, a sense of the miraculous upon him.  There again was the angled, low-celled room of the country tavern, reeking with food and lamps and perspiration; for a central figure the man of surpassing homeliness,—­coatless, tieless, and vestless,—­telling a story in the vernacular.  He reflected that it might well seem strange yea, and intolerable—­to many that this comedian of the country store, this crude lawyer and politician, should inherit the seat dignified by Washington and the Adamses.