Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/102

 He filled the vehicle, and what was left he packed carefully in his valise.

He stopped his team in front of the Baptist parsonage to see Mrs. Durham about Allan McLeod.

"Delighted to see you, General Worth. It's refreshing to look into the faces of our great leaders, if they are still outlawed as rebels by the Washington government."

"Ah, Madam, I need not say it is refreshing to see you, the rarest and most beautiful flower of the old South in the days of her wealth and pride! And always the same!" The General bowed over her hand.

"Yes, I haven't surrendered yet."

"And you never will," he laughed.

"Why should I? They've done their worst. They have robbed me of all. I've only rags and ashes left."

"Things might still be worse, Madam."

"I can't see it. There is nothing but suffering and ruin before us. These ignorant negroes are now being taught by people who hate or misunderstand us. They can only be a scourge to society. I am when I try to think of the future!"

There was a mist about her eyes that betrayed the deep emotion with which she uttered the last sentence.

She was a queenly woman of the brunette type with full face of striking beauty surmounted by a mass of rich chestnut hair. The loss of her slaves and estate in the war had burned its message of bitterness into her soul. She had the ways of that imperious aristocracy of the South that only slavery could nourish. She was still uncompromising upon every issue that touched the life of the past.

She believed in slavery as the only possible career for a negro in America. The war had left her cynical on the future of the new "Mulatto" nation as she called it, born in its agony. Her only child had died during the