It was characteristic of his mothers strength of mind not to mention the
subject again that evening. Stephen did not sleep in the hot night. But
when he rose in the morning he had made up his mind. After breakfast he
went straight to the Colonel's store, and fortunately found. Mr. Carvel
at his desk, winding up his affairs.

The next morning, when the train for the East pulled out of Illinoistown,
Miss Jinny Carvel stood on the plat form tearfully waving good-by to a
knot of friends. She was leaving for Europe. Presently she went into the
sleeping-car to join the Colonel, who wore a gray liners duster. For a
long time she sat gazing at the young, corn waving on the prairie,
fingering the bunch of June roses on her lap. Clarence had picked them
only a few hours ago, in the dew at Bellegarde. She saw her cousin
standing disconsolate under the train sheds, just as she had left him.
She pictured him riding out the Bellefontaine Road that afternoon, alone.
Now that the ocean was to be between them, was it love that she felt for
Clarence at last? She glanced at her father. Once or twice she had
suspected him of wishing to separate them. Her Aunt Lillian, indeed, had
said as much, and Virginia had silenced her. But when she had asked the
Colonel to take Clarence to Europe, he had refused. And yet she knew that
he had begged Captain Lige to go.

Virginia had been at home but a week. She had seen the change in Clarence
and exulted. The very first day she had surprised him on the porch at
Bellegarde with "Hardee's tactics". From a boy Clarence had suddenly
become a man with a Purpose,--and that was the Purpose of the South.

"They have dared to nominate that dirty Lincoln," he said.--"Do you think
that we will submit to nigger equality rule? Never! never!" he cried. "If
they elect him, I will stand and fight them until my legs are shot from