thing she knew he was on her back. Jove! how she did plunge! but he
mastered her; he sat superbly. I felt Gifford had the making of a man in
him, after that. He inherits his father's pluck. You know Woodhouse made
a record at Lookout Mountain; he was killed the third day."

"Gifford used to say," said Helen, "that he wished he had been born in
time to go into the army."

"There's a good deal of fight in the boy," said the rector, chuckling.
"His aunts were always begging him not to get into rows with the village
boys. I even had to caution him myself. 'Never fight, sir,' I'd say; 'but
if you do fight, whip 'em!' Yes, it's a pity he couldn't have been in the
army."

"Well," said Lois, impatiently, "Giff would have fought, I know, but
he's so contradictory! I've heard him say the Southerners couldn't help
fighting for secession; it was a principle to them, and there was no
moral wrong about it, he said."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried the rector; "these young men, who haven't borne the
burden and heat of the day, pretend to instruct us, do they? No moral
wrong? I thought Gifford had some sense! They were condemned by God and
man."

"But, uncle Archie," Helen said, slowly, "if they thought they were
right, you can't say there was a moral wrong?"

"Oh, come, come," said Dr. Howe, with an indignant splutter, "you don't
understand these things my dear,--you're young yet, Helen. They were
wrong through and through; so don't be absurd." Then turning half