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. Then she turned suddenly.

"_Can't_ you understand, Ailsa?" asked her sister-in-law wistfully.

"Celia--dearest," she stammered, "I simply can't understand. . . .