Many men feel the uncertainty; not everybody, dear." "When this--_matter_--is settled, everything will be easier for you, won't it?
You look so white and tired, dear." Stephen overheard her.
"The _matter_, as you call it, won't be settled without a row, mother--if you mean the rebellion." "Such a wise boy with his new cigar," she smiled through a sudden resurgence of uneasiness.
The boy said calmly: "Mother, you don't understand; and all the rest of the South is like you." "Does anybody understand, Steve ?" asked his father, slightly ironical.
"Some people understand there's going to be a big fight," said the boy.
"Oh.

Do you ?" "Yes," he said, with the conviction of youth.

"And I'm wondering who's going to be in it." "The militia, of course," observed Ailsa scornfully.

"Camilla is forever sewing buttons on Jimmy's dress uniform.

He wears them off dancing." Mr.Craig said, unsmiling: "We are not a military nation, Steve; we are not only non-military but we are unmilitary--if you know what that means." "We once managed to catch Cornwallis," suggested his son, still proudly smoking.
"I wonder how we did it ?" mused his father.
"They were another race--those catchers of Cornwallis--those fellows in, blue-and-buff and powdered hair." "You and Celia are their grandchildren," observed Ailsa, "and you are a West Point graduate." Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in his handsome, near-sighted eyes: "Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me.