Laura thought that girls knew nothing about public matters and it was ridiculous for them to discuss such things. Her politics, the dear child said, were whatever papa's were, and if she married they would be whatever her husband's were.

Moran thought this exceedingly sensible. Mr. Cleburne, to whom it was afterwards told, was overjoyed with it, and voted Miss Laura the most level-headed girl of his acquaintance. No more war references were indulged in during the residue of the excursion, so satisfied were the party of the unpleasant effects likely to result therefrom.

Miss Ada Cleburne, with the charming tact of a well-bred city woman, adroitly changed the drift of the conversation to more pleasant channels, greatly to the relief of the two gentlemen of the company-an endeavor in which Laura Foley, with sincere but awkward earnestness, eagerly joined.

But Cornelia, in no wise sullen, looked and hinted such awful protests against this system of fillibustering and mental shirking, that it was a relief when the ladies were put down in Mrs. Cleburne's yard and the gentlemen returned to Mr. Moran's hotel.

There refreshments were ordered after the fashion well known to young America, and the merits of two at least of the young ladies were very freely and sympathetically discussed by these young men.

Now the refreshments aforesaid being of a liquid nature, and there being no bar in the hotel, were brought by a servant in a wicker basket and carried into one of the parlors which adjoined the hallway of the hotel, and which, owing to the large number of Christmas arrivals from the country, had been fitted up with several beds, one of which had been assigned Moran.

On one visit to his room, heated with the wine, the two young men discussed in rather loud tones the names and merits of the young ladies who had been their companions on the excursion. In the farther part of the room a gentleman, just arrived from the last train, was performing his ablutions.

When he passed to the mirror for brush and comb, Moran glanced at his features and at once, with some shamefacedness, pronounced the name of Mr. Frank Hubbard.

It was evident from Mr. Hubbard's manner of returning the greeting that he had heard Cornelia Renfrew's name pronounced over the liquor, and remembering, as Moran did, what Hubbard had told in Alabama of his connection with the Brook wood people, the impression became fixed that the Hubbard breast cherished, along with a more than ordinary regard for Cornelia, seeds of resentment towards her would-be wooer.

In fact the new arrival passed into the hall before our hero could find time to introduce Mr. Cleburne, and his face was contemptuously stern in expression as he bowed himself out.

It is always a disadvantage to be caught taking a drink by a man who does not himself drink, and whose chase for an honor runs in conflict with your own.

Besides this, here was Moran glibly calling in a public room of a hotel the name of a young woman with whom Mr. Hubbard could not suspect him to have more than a passing acquaintance, but whom Mr. Hubbard, from his connection with her father and her dead boy brother, regarded as under his peculiar protection.

To add sting to the impression made upon Archie by Hubbard's cool manner, he had learned since coming to Virginia that the back interest on the bonds sold to that gentleman by Mrs. Moran had been recently paid, and amounted to about the sum expended by Mr. Hubbard in their purchase.

So that he had been badly overreached in his one encounter with the man of the bath.

Mr. Robert Cleburne voted Mr. Hubbard an ill-bred brute; but hearing who he was, opined that he had money in abundance, and communicated to Moran the intelligent guess that Mr. Hubbard had come to Petersburg to see him (Mr. Cleburne) on a very important matter of business-it being no less an affair than the seizure of the tobacco factory in which Hubbard was interested on information furnished by Mr. Robert.

It is perhaps discreditable to that fervent goodness which ought to characterize the hero of a novel to say, what is the truth, that Moran rather liked to hear this piece of news, and he felt closer towards the gentlemanly tobacco inspector from that time forward and proportionately cool towards Mr. Hubbard.

CHAPTER XVII.

A PRELUDE OF NONSENSE FOLLOWED BY THE SWAMP OF A LIFE-BOAT.

Mr. Cleburne took tea up-town as the guest of our young friend, sending word home that the two would call in the evening, when it was hoped the girls would be recovered from the day's fatigue.

On entering the Cleburne parlor a bright sea-coal fire and a fine glow of gas-light set off to great advantage the pleasant forms and faces of the three young females, who were grouped around a stereoscope at the centre table, criticising some pictures from Italy.

Miss Ada said she and brother Robert were to put into execution during the coming summer a long-meditated scheme of doing" the Continent, and that they would spend the winter following among the scenes they were then looking upon.

Mr. Moran said he had been endorsed by the Alabama delegation for one of the choice Italian Consulates, and that if Miss Ada was really going he would accept the appointment (which had been placed at the disposal of the delegation aforesaid) and arrange to go with her.

Miss Renfrew thought the young men of the South ought to stay in the South. The dream of her life was to see the old world, and she envied dear Ada the great pleasure in store for

her; but did not Mr. Robert agree with her that there was a pressing call of duty to every young Southerner to give at present every whit of his energy to home matters ?

Mr. Robert said it was all in a life-time, that what was everybody's business was nobody's business, and that he thought the country could take care of itself, with other worldly-minded remarks of like kind.

66

Oh, you selfish wretch!" cried the young girl; "don't you know that General Lee said Duty was the most sublime word in the English language? Why don't you young men take him for an exemplar?" And passing her eyes to Moran's she added: "Are you really going to take that appointment?"

"If Miss Ada goes I must go," said Archie with provoking

coolness.

"It's another Ruth and Naomi affair then, is it?" said Cornelia.

66 Yes, with the Naomi rôle recast, and for the better. Ada?"

Eh, Miss "Assuredly," said the blonde, enjoying slightly Cornelia's slight blushing.

"Miss Foley, we shall summer at Brookwood together, the most delighted pair of old maids to be found in Virginia, and spend our time in denouncing these deserters, won't we?" cried Cornelia.

"Brookwood has not yet lost its old name for hospitality, and I promise you for society the attentions of one of the finest gentlemen you ever met."

"Who?" interjected Archie—“ Mr. Hubbard? for he is in town now; met him this afternoon."

"No, sir-my father," replied the young woman, as she blushed to the temples for what she evidently regarded an impudent intrusion.

Laura noticed this very distinctly, and, given to the healing of breaches, even of the most trivial nature, half playfully assented to the visit.

It was now Moran's time to rally and recover from the un

lucky introduction of the tobacco factor's name. "May I not come, too?" he asked, affecting the stage manner of pathos.

"You are booked for the dark blue with Ada, are you not? My ears have surely heard aright a programme made so recently; and now he wants to come over to our side, Miss Laura—there must be some magic in the Alabama breast that calls louder than either Virginia or Europe on Mr. Moran—how is it, Miss Foley?"

Laura said she hoped that all Alabamians liked each other, but it surely could not be said that they were unfaithful to Virginia. When the war broke out her old State put her hand in Virginia's and kept it there till the close.

“And a very small war, it would have been if she had n't," added Moran, as he towered over the Renfrew pride and smote this withering, but borrowed blow.

66

"I vote down anything about the war," interjected young Cleburne. "It's a fraud and it's flat."

666

No more, Hal, an' thou lovest me,' eh?" said Archie, "to give your very just observation a neater dressing."

"Brother is given to slang," observed Ada. "It is barely tolerable in gentlemen-when used by ladies it puts me out of all patience."

"It is a part of the higher civilization of the North that is creeping in among us," said Cornelia.

"You are very clever," said Miss Foley.

"In the English or the American sense?" queried Cornelia. "There is a vast difference in the two uses of the word.”

"In both," said Laura with a kind smile.

"And in what sense am I clever?" ejaculated Cleburne. "In neither," said his sister.

"How do you put me up, Miss Renfrew? Cleburne.

"I have seen cleverer men," said Cornelia. "Talking English now, are you, eh?”

Be frank," urged

"Yes; but really I don't know you well enough to offer an analysis. Let me see you when you come back from Europe