A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories | Page 6

my post I'd
go!"

"Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remembering his wife. "I
couldn't think of letting you."
"Look here!" said the consul, taking an official letter, with the seal
broken, from his pocket. "This is the first time I couldn't have left my
post without distinct advantage to the public interests, since I've been
here. But with this letter from Turin, telling me to be on the lookout for
the Alabama, I couldn't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. The
Austrians have never recognized the rebels as belligerents: if she enters
the port of Venice, all I've got to do is to require the deposit of her
papers with me, and then I should like to see her get out again. I should
like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean Miss Mayhew," said the
consul, recognizing the double sense in which his language could be
taken.
"It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore,--"a great thing."
"Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and stop that infernal clatter
inside about going over and taking a hand again."
"Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the old shame. "I didn't know
you had it too."
"If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford to let the other fellows
fight it out."
"I congratulate you, with all my heart," said Elmore sadly, and he
walked in silence beside the consul.
"Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's pensive rapture, "I'm as
much obliged to you as if I had captured her. I'll go up to the Piazza
with you, and see Cazzi."
The affair was easily arranged; Cazzi was made to feel by the consul's
intervention that the shield of American sovereignty had been extended
over the young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and two days
later he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's attack now was passing off, and
she was well enough to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the

sofa where she had been prone till her arrival. It was pretty to see her
fond greeting of the girl, and her joy in her presence as they sat down
for the first long talk; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy
withdrawal, how much the bright, active spirit of his wife had suffered
merely in the restriction of her English. Now it was not only English
they spoke, but that American variety of the language of which I hope
we shall grow less and less ashamed; and not only this, but their
parlance was characterized by local turns and accents, which all came
welcomely back to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more intimate
inflections which belonged to her own particular circle of friends in the
little town of Patmos, N. Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own
set, being five or six years younger; but women, more easily than men,
ignore the disparities of age between themselves and their juniors; and
in Susy Stevens's absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish
her sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so long cherished.
Their friendship had been of such a thoroughly trusted sort on both
sides that Mrs. Stevens (the memorably brilliant Sue Mayhew in her
girlish days) had felt perfectly free to act upon Mrs. Elmore's invitation
to let Lily come out to her; and here the child was, as much at home as
if she had just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her sister's house
in Patmos.
IV.
They briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss Mayhew's voyage,
and her journey to Genoa, and came as quickly as they could to all
those things which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the town
and its people. "Is it much changed? I suppose it is," she sighed. "The
war changes everything."
"Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss Mayhew. "But Patmos
is gay,--perfectly delightful. We've got one of the camps there now; and
such times as the girls have with the officers! We have lots of fun
getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops on the parade-ground at the
camp, and going out to see the prisoners,--you never saw such a place."
"The prisoners?" murmured Mrs. Elmore.

"Why, yes!" cried Lily, with a gay laugh. "Didn't you know that we had
a prison-camp too? Some of the Southerners look real nice. I pitied
them," she added, with unabated gayety.
"Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore; "but I couldn't realize it, I
suppose, and so I forgot it."
"Yes," pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey's in command. You would
never know by the way he walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he
can't dance, though, poor fellow. He's pale,