adventure in flying and secret visits from Guy and the rest--Guy, who was
never again just the same with her; but, for that matter, neither was she
just the same with him. But, on the whole, as she pouted to him afterward,
she wouldn't call that four years' war exactly entertaining!

The Halls personally did not suffer so deeply as their neighbors except
from property loss. All they could afford, and more, they gave to the
South, and the Northern invader took what was left. When there was nothing
left, he hacked the rosewood furniture and made targets of the family
portraits, in the mere wantonness of loot that, as a recriminative
compliment, cannot be laid to the charge of any one period or section. Most
of the farm negroes crossed the river. Funds ran low.

There had been ease and luxury in the family always, and just when Bessie
reached the time to profit by them she remarked that they failed.

Even if the Halls were not in mourning, no one lives through such a time
without feeling the common humanity. But Bessie, though she lingered on the
brink of love as of all the other deeps of life--curious, adventurous, at
once willing and reluctant--was still, in the end, quite steady.

When the war was over, the Halls were poor, on a competence of land run to
waste, with no labor to work it, and no market to sell it. And Mr. Hall,
like so many of his generation, was too hampered by habit and crushed by
reminiscence to meet the new day.

It was the contrast in Guy's spirit that won Bessie. His was indeed the
immemorial spirit of youth--whether it be of the young world, or the young
male, or the young South--to accept the issue of trial by combat and give
loyalty to one proved equally worthy of sword or hand.