He laughed. "I saw you with a glory in your face, and your hair shining
like a crown of gold. You were mounted on a snow-white horse, and wore a
robe of white, soft and lustrous--like Joan of Arc, or a leader in a
suffrage parade. You were riding at the head of a host--I've still got
the music in my ears, Mary!"

"Go on with ye, lad--what's all this about?"

"Come in and I'll tell you," he said.

So they went into the bare kitchen, and sat in bare wooden chairs--Mary
folding her hands in her lap like a child who has been promised a
fairy-story. "Now hurry," said she. "I want to know about this new dress
ye're givin' me. Are ye tired of me old calico?"

He joined in her smile. "This is a dress you will weave for yourself,
Mary, out of the finest threads of your own nature--out of courage and
devotion and self-sacrifice."

"Sure, 'tis the poetry-book again! But what is it ye're really meanin'?"

He looked about him. "Is anybody here?"

"Nobody."

But instinctively he lowered his voice as he told his story. There was
an organiser of the "big union" in the camp, and he was going to rouse
the slaves to protest.

The laughter went out of Mary's face. "Oh! It's that!" she said, in a