Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOVE’S SACRIFICE, 49 She did not immediately reply. ‘‘May I ask what brings you, too, to Richmond ?”’ ‘‘T and my mother accompanied the Senator, my father, who was summoned by Mr. Davis, to fill an _ important post under our new government.”’ Another pause ensued. These two young people were evidently embar- rassed by the same recollection. The events of the last few weeks had made a great change in the lives of each. They had been drawn unconsciously to look upon each other as dearer than brother and sister—in a word, they loved as only two impassioned youthful natures can love. Yet while the avowal and the reply had scarcely erown cold on either lip, a gulf had suddenly opened | between them, with the first pun fired at Fort Sumter. A divided patriotism, like an impalpable presence, interposed, even as it came between father and son, brother and brother, in many a Southern home, thus bringing the awful element of fratricide into the war. ‘Tt were perhaps unmanly in me to call up the past,’’ said the young man, breaking the silence that had grown painful to both, ‘‘but I have not forgotten —nay, I can never forget, that for one brief instant —I knew the bliss of your love. Is that love now dead? Is there no hope for me in the future ?”’ ‘““Hope!’’ she echoed. ‘‘Yes, if you reconsider the words you uttered. If you give up the cause to which I am opposed with all the warmth of my Southern soul. Hear me out,’’ she said, as he made a gesture of despair. ‘‘Would I, loving youas I admit, ask you to do what I for a moment conceived to be dishonor- able? No, Royal, else were I undeserving of your es- ~teem and affection. I am nota foolish girl. I am a woman fully informed and associated with the issues © involved in this conflict between my people and yours. It is not the question of a day or a month, Gomicbooks (ele) m