Daisy

"It's like you!" broke out Miss Cardigan. "Ever since you were born, I think, you did what you liked, and had what you liked; and threw over everything to get at the best."

"On the contrary," said Thorold, "I was always of a very contented disposition."

"Contented with your own will, then," said his aunt. "And now, do you mean to tell me that you have got this prize – this prize – it's a first class, Christian – for good and for certain to yourself?"

I lifted my eyes one instant, to see the sparkles in Thorold's eyes; they were worth seeing.

"You don't think you deserve it?" Miss Cardigan went on.

"I do not think I deserve it," said Thorold. "But I think I will."

"I know what that means," said his aunt. "You will get worldly glory – just a bit or two more of gold on your coat – to match you with one of the Lord's jewels, that are to be 'all glorious within'; and you think that will fit you to own her."

"Aunt Catherine," said Thorold, "I do not precisely think that gold lace is glory. But I mean that I will do my duty. A man can do no more."

"Some would have said 'a man can do no less,'" said Miss Cardigan, turning to me. "But you are right, lad; more than our duty we can none of us do; where all is owing, less will not be overpay. But whatever do you think her father will say to you?"

"I will ask him when the time comes," said Thorold, contentedly. His tone was perfect, both modest and manly. Truth to say, I could not quite share his content in looking forward to the time he spoke of; but that was far ahead, and it was impossible not to share his confidence. My father and my mother had been practically not my guardians during six and a half long years; I had got out of the habit of looking first to them.

"And what are you going to do now in Washington?" said his aunt. "You may as well sit down and tell us."

"I don't know. Probably I shall be put to drill new recruits. All these seventy-five thousand men that the President has called for, won't know how to handle a gun or do anything else."

"And what is he going to do with these seventy-five thousand men, Christian?"

"Put down treason, if he can. Don't you realize yet that we have a civil war on our hands, Aunt Catherine? The Southern States are mustering and sending their forces; we must meet them, or give up the whole question; that is, give up the country."

"And what is it that they will try to do?" said Miss Cardigan. "It is a mystery to me what they want; but I suppose I know; only bad men are a mystery to me always."

"They will try to defy the laws," said Thorold. "We will try to see them executed."

"They seem very fierce," said Miss Cardigan; "to judge by what they say."

"And do," added Thorold. "I think there is a sort of madness in Southern blood."

He spoke with a manner of disgustful emphasis. I looked up at him to see an expression quite in keeping with his words. Miss Cardigan cried out —

"Hey, lad! ye're confident, surely, to venture your opinions so plainly and so soon!"

His face changed, as if sunlight had been suddenly poured over it. He came kneeling on one knee before me, taking my hand and kissing it, and laughing.

"And I see ye're not confident without reason!" added Miss Cardigan. "Daisy'll just let ye say your mind, and no punish you for it."

"But it is true, Miss Cardigan," I said, turning to her. I wished I had held my tongue the next minute, for the words were taken off my lips, as it were. It is something quite different from eating your own words, which I have heard of as not being pleasant; mine seemed to be devoured by somebody else.

"But is it true they are coming to attack Washington?" Miss Cardigan went on, when we had all done laughing. "I read it in the prints; and it seems to me I read every other thing there."

"I am afraid you read too many prints," said Thorold. "You are thinking of 'hear both sides,' Aunt Catherine? You must know there is but one side to this matter. There never are two sides to treason."

"That's true," said Miss Cardigan. "But about Washington, lad? I saw an extract from a letter written from that city, by a lady, and she said the place was in a terror; she said the President sleeps with a hundred men, armed, in the east room, to protect him from the Southern army; and keeps a sentinel before his bedroom door; and often goes clean out of the White House and sleeps somewhere else, in his fear."

I had never seen Thorold laugh as he did then. And he asked his aunt "where she had seen that extract?"

"It was in one of the papers – it was in an extract itself, I'm thinking."

"From a Southern paper," said Thorold.

"Well, I believe it was."

"I have seen extracts, too," said Thorold. "They say, Alexander H. Stephens is counselling the rebels to lay hold on Washington."

"Well, sit down and tell us what you do know, and how to understand things," said Miss Cardigan. "I don't talk to anybody, much, about politics."

So Thorold did as he was asked. He sat down on the other side of me, and with my hand in his, talked to us both. We went over the whole ground of the few months past, of the work then doing and preparing, of what might reasonably be looked for in both the South and the North. He said he was not very wise in the matter; but he was infinitely more informed than we; and we listened as to the most absorbing of all tales, till the night was far worn. A sense of the gravity and importance of the crisis; a consciousness that we were embarked in a contest of the most stubborn character, the end of which no man might foretell, pressed itself more and more on my mind as the night and the talk grew deeper. If I may judge from the changes in Miss Cardigan's face, it was the same with her. The conclusion was, the North was gathering and concentrating all her forces to meet the trial that was coming; and the young officers of the graduating class at the Military Academy had been ordered to the seat of war a little before their time of study was out, their help being urgently needed.

"And where is Preston?" said I, speaking for the first time in a long while.

"Preston?" echoed Thorold.

"My Cousin Preston – Gary; your classmate Gary."

"Gary! Oh, he is going to Washington, like the rest of us."

"Which side will he take?"

"You should know, perhaps, better than I," said Thorold. "He always has taken the Southern side, and very exclusively."

"Has taken?" said I. "Do you mean that among the cadets there has been a South and a North – until now, lately?"

"Aye, Daisy, always, since I have been in the Academy. The Southern clique and the Northern clique have been well defined; there is always an assumption of superiority on the one side, and some resenting of it on the other side. It was on that ground Gary and I split."

"Split!" I repeated.

But Thorold laughed and kissed me, and would give me no satisfaction. I began to put things together, though. I saw from Christian's eyes that he had nothing to be ashamed of, in looking back; I remembered Preston's virulence, and his sudden flush when somebody had repeated the word "coward," which he had applied to Thorold. I felt certain that more had been between them than mere words, and that Preston found the recollection not flattering, whatever it was; and having come to this settlement of the matter, I looked up at Thorold.

"My gentle little Daisy!" he said. "I will never quarrel with him again – if I can help it."

"You must quarrel with him, if he is on the wrong side," I answered. "And so must I."

"You say you must go immediately back to West Point," said Miss Cardigan. "Leave thanking Daisy's hand, and tell me when you are going; for the night is far past, children."

"I am gone when I bid you good-night," said Thorold. "I must set out with the dawn – to catch the train I must take."

"With the dawn! —this morning!" cried Miss Cardigan.

"Certainly. I should be there this minute, if the colonel had not given me something to do here that kept me."

"And when will ye do it?"