Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain." "A _nation_!" "Dear, we have always been that--only the No'th has just found it out.

Charleston is telling her now.

God give that our cannon need not repeat it." "But, Celia, the cannon _can't_! The same flag belongs to us both." "Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird." There came a subtle ringing sound in Celia Craig's voice; she leaned forward, taking the newspaper from Ailsa's idle fingers: "Try to be fair," she said in unsteady tones.

"God knows I am not trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor's Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street?
Would you care ve'y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle William?
Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the South." She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at random: "Calm as that second summer which precedes The first fall of the snow, In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds A city bides her foe.
"As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud Where bolted thunders sleep, Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud Towers o'er the solemn deep.
"But still along the dim Atlantic's line The only hostile smoke Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine From some frail floating oak.
"And still through streets re-echoing with trade Walk grave and thoughtful men Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade As lightly as the pen.
"And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim Over a wounded hound Seem each one to have caught the strength of him Whose sword-knot she hath hound.
"Thus, girt without and garrisoned at home, Day patient following day, Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome Across her tranquil bay.
"Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in steel, And with an unscathed brow, Watch o'er a sea unvexed by hostile keel As fair and free as now?
"We know not.

In the Temples of the Fates God has inscribed her doom; And, all untroubled in her faith she waits Her triumph or her tomb!" The hushed charm of their mother's voice fascinated the children.
Troubled, uncertain, Ailsa rose, took a few irresolute steps toward the extension where her brother-in-law still paced to and fro in the darkness, the tip of his cigar aglow.