say that as soon as I make my appearance!"
"I can hardly tell - the consciousness forced itself upon me.You are looking at life with a microscope, - as of old."
"With a microscope, papa!"
"To pick up invisible duties and find out indiscernibledangers -"
"When one is as old as I am," I said, "there is no need of amicroscope to find out either dangers or duties."
"Ha!" said my father, folding me in his arms - "what dangershave you discovered, Daisy?"
"I believe they are everywhere, papa," I said, kissing him.
"Not here," he said, fondly; "there shall be none here foryou."
"Mr. Randolph," said mamma, laughing, "if Daisy is to be meatand drink as well as scenery to you, we may as well dispensewith the usual formalities; but I hope you will condescend tolook at dinner as usual."
CHAPTER VIII.
SKIRMISHING
That first dinner at home! how strange and sweet it was. Sosweet, that I could scarcely hear the note of the littlewarning bell down in the bottom of my heart. But mamma hadstruck it up stairs, and its vibrations would not quite bestill. Yet there was a wonderful charm in my own home circle.The circle was made larger in the evening, by the coming in oftwo of Ransom's friends, who were also, I saw, friends of myfather and mother. They were two Southern gentlemen, as Iimmediately knew them to be; MM. de Saussure and Marshall,Ransom's worthy compeers in the line of personal appearanceand manner. De Saussure especially; but I liked Marshall best.This I found out afterward. The conversation that eveningnaturally went back to America which I had just come from, andto the time of my leaving it, and to the news then new thereand but lately arrived here. I had to hear the whole Bull Runaffair talked over from beginning to end and back again. Itwas not so pleasant a subject to me as to the rest of thecompany; which I suppose made the talk seem long.
"And you were there?" said Mr. de Saussure, suddenly appealingto me.
"Not at Manasses," I said.
"No, but close by; held in durance in the capital, withliberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregardnot to have gone in and set you free."
"Free?" said I, smiling. "I was free."
"There will be no freedom in the country, properly speaking,until that Northern usurper is tossed out of the place heoccupies."
"That will be soon," said my mother.
"In what sense is Mr. Lincoln a usurper?" I ventured to ask."He was duly elected."
"Is it possible Daisy has turned politician?" exclaimed mybrother.
"He is not a usurper," said Mr. Marshall.
"He is, if being out of his place can make him so," said DeSaussure; "and the assumption of rights that nobody has givenhim. By what title does he dare shut up Southern ports andsend his cut-throats upon Southern soil?"
"Well, they have met their punishment," my father remarked.And it hurt me sorely to hear him say it with evidentpleasure.
"The work is not done yet," said Ransom. "But at Bull Runrates - 'sixty pieces of splendid cannon' taken, as Mr. Davissays, and how many killed and prisoners? - the mud-sills willnot be able to keep it up very long. Absurd! to think thatthose Northern shopkeepers could make head against a few dozenSouthern swords."
"There were only a few dozen swords at Manasses," said DeSaussure. "Eighteen thousand, Mr. Davis puts the number in hisRichmond speech; and the Northern army had sixty thousand inthe field."
"A Richmond paper says forty thousand instead of eighteen,"Mr. Marshall remarked.
"Mr. Russell, of the London _Times_, estimated Beauregard'sforce at sixty thousand," I said.
"_He_ don't know!" said De Saussure.
"And Mr. Davis does not know," I added; "for the whole loss ofcannon on the Northern side that day amounted to butseventeen. Mr. Davis may as well be wrong in one set of factsas in another. He said also that provisions enough were takento feed an army of fifty thousand men for twelve months."
"Well, why not?" said Ransom, frowning.
"These gentlemen can tell you why not."
"Pretty heavy figures," said Mr. Marshall.
"Why are they not true, Miss Randolph?" Mr. de Saussure asked,bending as before a most deferential look upon me.
"And look here, - in what interest are you, Daisy?" my brothercontinued.
"Nothing is gained by blinking the truth anywhere, Ransom."
"No, that is true," said my father.
"Daisy has been under the disadvantage of hearing only oneside lately," my mother remarked very coolly.
"But about the provisions, Miss Randolph?" Mr. De Saussureinsisted, returning to the point with a willingness, Ithought, to have me speak.
"Mamma says, I have heard only one side," I answered. "But onthat side I have heard it remarked, that twelve thousandwagons would have been required to carry those provisions tothe battlefield. I do not know if the calculation wascorrect."
Mr. De Saussure's face clouded for an instant. My fatherseemed to be pondering. Ransom's frowns grew more deep.
"What side are you on, Daisy?" he repeated.
"She is on her own side, of course," my mother said.
"I hope there is no doubt of that, Mrs. Randolph," said Mr.Marshall. "Such an enemy would be very formidable! I shouldbegin to question on which side I was myself."
They went off into a long discussion about the probablemovements of the belligerent parties in America; what might beexpected from different generals; how long the conflict waslikely to last, and how its certain issue, the discomfiture ofthe North and the independence of the South, would beattained. Mingled with this discussion were laudations ofJefferson Davis, scornful reviling of President Lincoln, andsneers at the North generally; at their men, their officers,their money, their way of making it and their way of spendingit. Triumphant anticipations, of shame and defeat to them andthe superb exaltation of the South, were scattered, like asalt and pepper seasoning, through all the conversation. Ilistened, with my nerves tingling sometimes, with my heartthrobbing at other times; sadly inclined to believe they mightbe right in a part of their calculations; very sadly sure theywere wrong in everything else. I had to keep a constant guardupon my face; happily my words were not called for. My eyesnow and then met papa's, with a look that gave and receivedanother sort of communication. When the evening was over, andpapa was folding me in his arms to bid me good-night, hewhispered, -
"You and I cannot be on two sides of anything, Daisy?"
"Papa - you know on what side of most things I am -" I repliedto this difficult question.
"Do I? No, I do not know that I do. What side is it, Daisy?"
"On the Lord's side, papa, when I can find out what that is."
"Make me sure that you have found it, and I will be on thatside too," he said, as he kissed me.
The words filled me with a great joy. For they were not spokenin defiance of the supposed condition, but rather, as itseemed to me, in desire and love of it. Had papa come to that?The new joy poured like a flood over all the dry places in myheart, which had got into a very dry state with hearing theconversation of the evening. I went to bed tired and happy.
Nevertheless I awoke to the consciousness that I had a nicepiece of navigation before me, and plenty of rough water inall probability. The best thing would be for me to be assilent as possible. Could I be silent? They all wanted to hearwhat I would say. Every eye had sought mine this past evening.
I was the first in the breakfast-room, and papa was the next.We were alone. He took me tenderly in his arms and held mefast, looking at me and kissing me by turns.
"Are you well now, papa?" I asked him. "Are you quite wellagain?"
"Well enough," he answered; "not just as I was once."
"Why not, papa?"
"I have never quite got over that unlucky fall. It has left myhead a little shaky, Daisy; and my strength - Never mind! youare my strength now, my pet. We should have gone home beforethis, only for the troubles breaking out there."
I leaned my head upon his breast, and wished the tro
ubles werenot! What a division those troubles made, unknown to him,between his heart's happiness and mine - yes, between him andme. Mamma came in and looked at us both.
"It is a very pretty picture," she said. And she kissed me,while papa did not let me out of his arms. "Daisy, you are abeauty."
"She is a great deal better than a beauty," said my father."But, now I look at you, Daisy - yes, you _are_ a beauty,certainly."
They both laughed heartily at the colour which all this raisedin my face.
"Most exquisite, her skin is," said my mother, touching mycheek.