The Red Acorn | Page 5

Fort Sumter.
Does it seem harsh to say that she had sought to bring about this
DENOUEMENT? Rather, it seems that her efforts were commendable.
She was a young woman of marriageable age. She believed her her
mission in life was marriage to some man who would make her a good
husband, and whom she would in turn love, honor, and strive to make
happy. Harry Glen's family was the equal of her's in social station, and
a little above it in wealth. to this he added educational and personal
advantages that made him the most desirable match in Sardis. Starting

with the premises given above, her first conclusion was the natural one
that she should marry the best man available, and the next that that man
was Harry Glen.
Her efforts had been bounded by the strictest code of maidenly ethics,
and so artistically developed that the only persons who penetrated their
skillful veiling, and detected her as a "designing creature," were two or
three maiden friends, whose maneuvers toward the same objective were
brought to naught by her success.
It must be admitted that refining causists may find room for censure in
this making Ambition the advance guard to spy out the ground that
Love is to occupy. But, after all, is there not a great deal of mistake
about the way that true love begins? If we had the data before us we
should be pained by the enlightenment that, in the vast majority of
cases the regard of young people for each other is fixed in the first
instance by motives that will bear quite as little scrutiny as Miss Rachel
Bond's.
We can afford to be careless how the germ of love is planted. The main
thing is how it is watered and tended, and brought to a lasting and
beautiful growth. Rachel's ambition gratified, there had been a steady
rise toward flood in the tide of her affections. She was not long in
growing to love Harry with all the intensity of a really ardent nature.
After the meeting at which Harry had signed the recruiting roll, he had
taken her home up the long, sloping hill, through moonlight as soft, as
inspiring, as glorifying as that which had melted even the frosty
Goddess of Maidenhood, so that she stooped from her heavenly
unapproachableness, and kissed the handsome Endymion as he slept.
Though little and that commonplace was said as they walked, subtle
womanly instinct prepared Rachel's mind for what was coming, and her
grasp upon Harry's arm assumed a new feeling that hurried him on to
the crisis.
They stopped beneath the old apple-tree, at the crest of the hill, and in
front of the house. Its gnarled and twisted limbs had been but freshly
clothed in a suit of fragrant green leaves.
The ruddy bonfires, lighted for the war-meeting, still burned in the
village below. The hum of supplementary speeches to the excited
crowds that still lingered about came to their ears, mingled with cheers
from throat rapidly growing hoarse, and the throb and wail of fife and

drum. Then, uplifted on the voices of hundreds who sang it as only men,
and men swayed by powerful emotions can, rose the ever-glorious
"Star-Spangled Banner," loftiest and most inspiring of national hymns.
Through its long, forceful measures, which have the sweep and ring of
marching battalions, swung the singers, with a passionate earnestness
that made every note and word glow with meaning. The swelling paean
told of the heroism and sacrifice with which the foundations of the
Nation were laid, of the glory to which the land had risen, and then its
mood changing to one of direness and wrath, it foretold the just
punishment of those who broke the peace of a happy land.
The mood of the Sardis people was that patriotic exaltation which
reigned in every city and village of the North on that memorable night
of April, 1861.
But Rachel and Harry had left far behind them this passion of the
multitude, which had set their own to throbbing, even as the roar of a
cannon will waken the vibrations of harp-strings. Around where they
stood was the peace of the night and sleep. The perfume of violets and
hyacinths, and of myriads of opening buds seemed shed by the moon
with her silvery rays through the soft, dewy air; a few nocturnal insects
droned hither and thither, and "drowsy tinklings lulled the distant
folds."
As their steps were arrested Rachel released her grasp from Harry's arm,
but he caught her hand before it fell to her side, and held it fast. She
turned her face frankly toward him, and he looked down with anxious
eyes upon the broad white forehead, framed in silken black hair, upon
great eyes, flaming with