With graceful courtesies and stately bows the dance began. And over all
a glad negro called the numbers:

"Forward Fours!"

The caller's eyes rolled and his body swayed with the rhythm of
the dance as he watched each set with growing pride. They danced a
quadrille, a mazurka, another quadrille, a schottische, the lancers,
another quadrille, and another and another. They paused for supper at
midnight and then danced them over again.

While the fine young forms swayed to exquisite rhythm and the music
floated over all, the earnest young Congressman bent close to his host
in a corner of the library.

"I sincerely hope, Colonel Lee, that you can see your way clear to make
a reply to this book of Mrs. Stowe which Ruffin has sent you."

"I can't see it yet, Mr. Pryor--"

"Ruffin is a terrible old fire-eater, I know," the Congressman admitted.
"But _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is the most serious blow the South has received
from the Abolitionists. And what makes it so difficult is that its
appeal is not to reason. It is to sentiment. To the elemental emotions
of the mob. No matter whether its picture is true or false, the result
will be the same unless the minds who read it can be cured of its
poison. It has become a sensation. Every Northern Congressman has read
it. A half million copies have been printed and the presses can't keep
up with the demands. This book is storing powder in the souls of the
masses who don't know how to think, because they've never been trained