arrangement. _He_ seems to be in love with Kate."

"How absurd!" Rosa cried, with a laugh; "a boy like him! Why, he would
be in school, if there were no war."

"Well, Rosa, I fancy that Dick hasn't found war very much different from
school, so far. He seems to recite a good deal to the mistress, and
occupies the dunce's block quite regularly," Vincent retorted, with a
provoking significance that set mamma in a brown study and suspended the
comments on Kate's and Jack's probable sentiments.

Mrs. Sprague and Wesley were the only people in the house who had no
suspicion of a deeper feeling than mere passing goodfellowship between
Jack and Kate. Both were blinded by the same confidence. The mother
could never conceive a son of the house of Sprague making such a breach
on the family traditions as a union with a Boone. Wesley could not
conceive a sister of his giving her heart to the son of a family that
had insolently refused to concede social equality to her father.
Something of Wesley's miserable inner unrest could not fail to be
visible to the Atterburys, but the less congenial he became the more
watchfully considerate they made their treatment of him. He was their
guest, with all the sacred rights and immunities that quality implies,
in the exaggerated code of the Southern host. Kate was the single power
that Wesley had bent his headstrong will before, ever since he was a
boy. His father he obeyed, while in his presence, trusting to wheedling
to make his peace in the event of disobedience. But Kate he
couldn't wheedle.

She was relentless in her scorn for his meannesses and follies, and,
though he did not always heed her counsels, he proved their justness by