So you see the prospects are that you will have me on your hands
indefinitely. Mr. Lanniere, indeed! What should I be but a part of
his possessions,--another expensive luxury in his luxurious life?
I want a man like papa,--earnest, large-brained, and large-hearted,--who,
instead of inveighing against the times, is absorbed in the vital
questions of the day, and is doing his part to solve them rightly.
I would like to take Mr. Lanniere into a military hospital or
cemetery, and show him what the war has cost other men."

"Why, Marian, how you talk!"

"I wish I could make you know how I feel. It seems to me that one
has only to think a little and look around in order to feel deeply.
I read of an awful battle while coming up in the cars. We have
been promised, all the spring, that Richmond would be taken, the
war ended, and all go on serenely again; but it doesn't look like
it."

"What's the use of women distressing themselves with such things?"
said Mrs. Vosburgh, irritably. "I can't bear to think of war and
its horrors, except as they give spice to a story. Our whole trouble
is a big political squabble, and you know I detest politics. It
is just as Mr. Lanniere says,--if our people had only let slavery
alone all would have gone on veil. The leaders on both sides will
find out before the summer is over that they have gone too far
and fast, and they had better settle their differences with words
rather than blows. We shall all be shaking hands ana making up
before Christmas."

"Papa doesn't think so."