"So the Colonel told him. And he said that he would die willingly--after
Abraham Lincoln was elected. He had nothing to live for but to fight for
that. He had never understood the world, and had quarrelled with at all
his life."

'He said that to Colonel Carvel?"

"Yes."

"Stephen!"

He didn't dare to look at his mother, nor she at him. And when he reached
the office, half an hour later, Mr. Whipple was seated in his chair,
defiant and unapproachable. Stephen sighed as he settled down to his
work. The thought of one who might have accomplished what her father
could not was in his head. She was at Monticello.

Some three weeks later Mr. Brinsmade's buggy drew up at Mrs. Brice's
door. The Brinsmade family had been for some time in the country. And
frequently, when that gentleman was detained in town by business, he
would stop at the little home for tea. The secret of the good man's visit
came out as he sat with them on the front steps afterward.

"I fear that it will be a hot summer, ma'am," he had said to Mrs. Brice.
"You should go to the country."

"The heat agrees with me remarkably, Mr. Brinsmade," said the lady,
smiling.