"We'd better be moving along. It's half-past seven now."

"Yas, 'r."

Once more they set forward, descending the slope into the less
hazardous road that wound its way into the town of S----, then, as
now, a thriving place in the uplands. The ending of a deadly war not
more than ten years prior to the opening of this tale had left this
part of fair Virginia gasping for breath, yet too proud to cry for
help. Virginia, the richest and fairest and proudest of all the
seceding states, was but now finding her first moments of real hope
and relief. Her fortunes had gone for the cause; her hopes had sunk
with it.

Both were now rising together from the slough into which they had been
driven by the ruthless Juggernaut of Conquest. The panic of '73 meant
little to the people of this fair commonwealth; they had so little
then to lose, and they had lost so much. The town of S---, toward
which these weary travelers turned their steps, was stretching out its
hands to clasp Opportunity and Prosperity as those fickle commodities
rebounded from the vain-glorious North; the smile was creeping back
into the haggard face of the Southland; the dollars were jingling now
because they were no longer lonely. The bitterness of life was not so
bitter; an ancient sweetness was providing the leaven. The Northern
brother was relaxing; he was even washing the blood from his hands and
extending them to raise the sister he had ravished. There was
forgiveness in the heart of fair Virginia--but not yet the desire to
forget. The South was coming into its own once more--not the old
South, but a new one that realized.