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