The graceful figure of her younger brother stood
straight and trim by her side in his new volunteer uniform. Whatever the
political leaders might think or do, these Southern people meant to
fight. There was no mistaking that fact. With every letter to his Chief
in Washington he had made this plain. The deeper he had penetrated the
lower South the more overwhelming this conviction had become.
For the moment he put the thought of his tragic mission out of his
heart. There was something wonderful in the breath of this early
Southern spring. The first week in February and flowers were blooming on
every lawn of every embowered cottage and every stately house! The song
of birds, the hum of bees, the sweet languor of the perfumed air found
his inmost soul. The snows lay cold and still and deathlike over the
Northern world.
This was fairyland.
And the Bartons' home on the banks of the river was the last touch that
completed the capture of his imagination. Through a vista of overhanging
boughs he caught the flash of its white fluted pillars in the distance.
The broad verandas were arched with climbing roses. In the center of the
sunlit space in front a fountain played, the splash of its cooling
waters keeping time to the song of mocking birds in shrubs and trees.
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