“There is Mr. Vance now,” said Mrs. Colfax, and added fervently, “Thank the Lord!”

CHAPTER IX

A QUIET SUNDAY IN LOCUST STREET

If the truth were known where Virginia got the opinions which she expressed so freely to her aunt and cousin, it was from Colonel Carvel himself.  The Colonel would rather have denounced the Dred Scott decision than admit to Judge Whipple that one of the greatest weaknesses of the South lay in her lack of mechanical and manufacturing ability.  But he had confessed as much in private to Captain Elijah Brent.  The Colonel would often sit for an hour or more, after supper, with his feet tucked up on the mantel and his hat on the back of his head, buried in thought.  Then he would saunter slowly down to the Planters’ House bar, which served the purposes of a club in those days, in search of an argument with other prominent citizens.  The Colonel had his own particular chair in his own particular corner, which was always vacated when he came in at the door.  And then he always had three fingers of the best Bourbon whiskey, no more and no less, every evening.

He never met his bosom friend and pet antagonist at the Planters’ House bar.  Judge Whipple, indeed, took his meals upstairs, but he never descended,—­it was generally supposed because of the strong slavery atmosphere there.  However, the Judge went periodically to his friend’s for a quiet Sunday dinner (so called in derision by St. Louisans), on which occasions Virginia sat at the end of the table and endeavored to pour water on the flames when they flared up too fiercely.

The Sunday following her ride to Bellegarde was the Judge’s Sunday, Certain tastes which she had inherited had hitherto provided her with pleasurable sensations while these battles were in progress.  More than once had she scored a fair hit on the Judge for her father,—­to the mutual delight of both gentlemen.  But to-day she dreaded being present at the argument.  Just why she dreaded it is a matter of feminine psychology best left to the reader for solution.

The argument began, as usual, with the tearing apart limb by limb of the unfortunate Franklin Pierce, by Judge Whipple.

“What a miserable exhibition in the eyes of the world,” said the Judge.  “Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire” (he pronounced this name with infinite scorn) “managed by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi!”

“And he was well managed, sir,” said the Colonel.

“What a pliant tool of your Southern slaveholders!  I hear that you are to give him a plantation as a reward.”

“No such thing, sir.”

“He deserves it,” continued the Judge, with conviction.  “See the magnificent forts he permitted Davis to build up in the South, the arsenals he let him stock.  The country does not realize this.  But the day will, come when they will execrate Pierce before Benedict Arnold, sir.  And look at the infamous Kansas-Nebraska act!  That is the greatest crime, and Douglas and Pierce the greatest criminals, of the century.”