"But look at Mont Pilatte now," resumed Mr. Marshall, - "with that crown of light on its brow; - does it not give you the feeling of something inapproachable - not literally but spiritually, - something pure, glorious, infinite - something that shames us mortals into insignificance?"

I looked, and I thought I knew why he felt as he did; but I did not think I could explain it to him just then.

"Have you a little of my feeling?" he said again. "Do you understand it?"

"I understand it, I think," I said.

"And do not share it at all?"

"No, Mr. Marshall. Of course, the mountain is great, and I am small; but the purity, and the glory, - that is not beyond reach; and no human being ought to be insignificant, and none need be."

"Not if his life is insignificant?"

"n.o.body's life ought to be that," I answered.

"How can it be helped, in the case of many a one?"

"Yes indeed," said De Saussure; "there is a question. I should like to hear Miss Randolph answer it."

One spoke lightly and the other earnestly. It was not easy to answer them both.

"I should like to have you define insignificance first," I said.

"Can there be a more significant word?" said Mr. De Saussure.

"It defines itself."

"A life of insignificance, is a life that does not signify anything," Mr. Marshall added.

"Most people's lives signify something," I said, stupidly, my thoughts running on far ahead of my words.

"Yes, to somebody in the corner at home," Mr. Marshall said, "whose affection cannot make a true estimate. But do most people's lives signify anything, except to some fond judgment of that sort?"

"Who is estimating you, in a corner at home?" said Mr. de Saussure.

"n.o.body - and that you know. n.o.body, except my old mammy."

"You are a lucky fellow, Hugh. Free as air! Now I have five or six dear appraisers at my home; who are of opinion that an epaulette and a commission would add to my value; or rather, to do them justice, they are very desirous to have my life - or my death - tell for something, in the struggle which occupies all their, thoughts at present. I do not mean that they have no choice, but, one or the other. And so am I desirous; but - Lucerne is so very captivating! And really, as, I said, one signifies so little."

"One is half of two," said Ransom - "and a hundredth part of a hundred."

"I should like, I think, to be half of two," said De Saussure, comically. "I don't care about being the hundredth part of anything."

"But you are going when I go?" said Ransom.

"Mrs. Randolph says so; and I suppose she will command me.

What does Miss Randolph say?"

"Yes, to my question," said Hugh Marshall.

"I do not quite know what is either question," I replied; "and a judge ought to understand his cause."

"Is it my duty to go and plunge into the melee at home, because my mother and two aunts and three sisters are all telling me they will renounce me if I do not? I say, what does one signify?"

"And _I_ say, how may one escape from insignificance? - anyhow?"

"A man with your income need not ask that," said Ransom.

"What does Miss Randolph say?" De Saussure insisted.

"If you will tell me, Mr. De Saussure, what the South is fighting for, I can better answer you."

"That speech is Daisy all over!" said Ransom impatiently. "She never will commit herself, if she can get somebody to do it for her."

"Fighting for freedom - for independence, of course!" Mr. De Saussure said, opening his eyes. "Is there any question?"

"How was their freedom threatened?"

"Why," said Ransom, hotly, "what do you think of armies upon the soil of Virginia? - invading armies, come to take what they like? What do you think of Southern forts garrisoned by Northern troops, and Southern cities in blockade? Is that your idea of freedom?"

"These are not the cause, but the effect, of the position taken by the South," I said.

"Yes, we fired the first gun, Randolph," said Mr. Marshall.

"Sumter was held against us," said Ransom.

"Not till South Carolina had seceded."

"Well, she had a _right_ to secede!" cried Ransom. "And this right the Northern mudsills are trying to trample out. If she has not a right to be governed as she likes, she is not free."

"But why did she secede?" I asked. "What wrong was done her?"

"You are a girl, and cannot understand such matters!" Ransom answered, impatiently. "Just ask mamma to talk to you; - or I will!"

"Miss Randolph's question is pertinent though," said Mr.

Marshall; "and I am ashamed to confess I am as little able to answer it as she. What wrong had they to complain of?"

"Why, Hugh, you certainly know," his companion answered, "that Lincoln was elected; and that if the government is to be in the hands of those who do not think and vote with us - as this election shows it will - we shall be pushed to the wall. The South and her inst.i.tutions will come to nothing - will be in a contemptible minority. We do not choose that."

"Then the wrong done them was that they were out-voted?" Mr.

Marshall said.

"Put it so!" De Saussure replied, with heat; "we have a right to say we will govern ourselves and sail our own boat."

"Yes, so I think we have," said the other. "Whether it is worth such a war, is another question, Such a war is a serious thing."

"It would be mean-spirited to let our rights be taken from us," said Ransom. "It is worth anything to maintain them."

"It will not be much of a war," resumed De Saussure. "Those poor tailors and weavers will find their workshops are a great deal more comfortable than soldiers' tents and the battle- ground; and they won't stand fire, depend upon it."