"Where are you going, Lige?"

"To pay off the carriage driver," he said.

"Let him wait," said Virginia. "I'm going to the White House in a little
while."

"What--what for?" he gasped.

"To see your Black Republican President," she replied, with alarming
calmness.

"Now, Jinny," he cried, in excited appeal, "don't go doin' any such fool
trick as that. Your Uncle Dan'l will be here this afternoon. He knows the
President. And then the thing'll be fixed all right, and no mistake."

Her reply was in the same tone--almost a monotone--which she had used for
three days. It made the Captain very uneasy, for he knew when she spoke
in that way that her will was in it.

"And to lose that time," she answered, "may be to have him shot."

"But you can't get to the President without credentials," he objected.

"What," she flashed, "hasn't any one a right to see the President? You
mean to say that he will not see a woman in trouble? Then all these
pretty stories I hear of him are false. They are made up by the Yankees."

Poor Captain Lige! He had some notion of the multitude of calls upon Mr.
Lincoln, especially at that time. But he could not, he dared not, remind