The father, colossal egotist that he was, heard Phil"s protests with mild amus.e.m.e.nt and quiet pride in his independence, for he loved this boy with deep tenderness.
Phil had been touched by the story of Ben"s narrow escape, and was anxious to show his mother and sister every courtesy possible in part atonement for the wrong he felt had been done them. He was timid with girls, and yet he wished to give Margaret a cordial greeting for Elsie"s sake. He was not prepared for the shock the first appearance of the Southern girl gave him.
When the stately figure swept through the door to greet him, her black eyes sparkling with welcome, her voice low and tender with genuine feeling, he caught his breath in surprise.
Elsie noted his confusion with amus.e.m.e.nt and said:
"I must go to the hospital for a little work. Now, Phil, I"ll meet you at the door at eight o"clock."
"I"ll not forget," he answered abstractedly, watching Margaret intently as she walked with Elsie to the door.
He saw that her dress was of coa.r.s.e, unbleached cotton, dyed with the juice of walnut hulls and set with wooden hand-made b.u.t.tons. The story these things told of war and want was eloquent, yet she wore them with unconscious dignity. She had not a pin or brooch or piece of jewellery.
Everything about her was plain and smooth, graceful and gracious. Her face was large--the lovely oval type--and her luxuriant hair, parted in the middle, fell downward in two great waves. Tall, stately, handsome, her dark rare Southern beauty full of subtle languor and indolent grace, she was to Phil a revelation.
The coa.r.s.e black dress that clung closely to her figure seemed alive when she moved, vital with her beauty. The musical cadences of her voice were vibrant with feeling, sweet, tender, and homelike. And the odour of the rose she wore pinned low on her breast he could swear was the perfume of her breath.
Lingering in her eyes and echoing in the tones of her voice, he caught the shadowy memory of tears for the loved and lost that gave a strange pathos and haunting charm to her youth.
She had returned quickly and was talking at ease with him.
"I"m not going to tell you, Captain Stoneman, that I hope to be a sister to you. You have already made yourself my brother in what you did for Ben."
"Nothing, I a.s.sure you, Miss Cameron, that any soldier wouldn"t do for a brave foe."
"Perhaps; but when the foe happens to be an only brother, my chum and playmate, brave and generous, whom I"ve worshipped as my beau-ideal man--why, you know I must thank you for taking him in your arms that day.
May I, again?"
Phil felt the soft warm hand clasp his, while the black eyes sparkled and glowed their friendly message.
He murmured something incoherently, looked at Margaret as if in a spell, and forgot to let her hand go.
She laughed at last, and he blushed and dropped it as though it were a live coal.
"I was about to forget, Miss Cameron. I wish to take you to the theatre to-night, if you will go?"
"To the theatre?"
"Yes. It"s to be an occasion, Elsie tells me. Laura Keene"s last appearance in "Our American Cousin," and her one-thousandth performance of the play. She played it in Chicago at McVicker"s, when the President was first nominated, to hundreds of the delegates who voted for him. He is to be present to-night, so the _Evening Star_ has announced, and General and Mrs. Grant with him. It will be the opportunity of your life to see these famous men--besides, I wish you to see the city illuminated on the way."
Margaret hesitated.
"I should like to go," she said with some confusion. "But you see we are old-fashioned Scotch Presbyterians down in our village in South Carolina.
I never was in a theatre--and this is Good Friday----"
"That"s a fact, sure," said Phil thoughtfully. "It never occurred to me.
War is not exactly a spiritual stimulant, and it blurs the calendar. I believe we fight on Sundays oftener than on any other day."
"But I"m crazy to see the President since Ben"s pardon. Mamma will be here in a moment, and I"ll ask her."
"You see, it"s really an occasion," Phil went on. "The people are all going there to see President Lincoln in the hour of his triumph, and his great General fresh from the field of victory. Grant has just arrived in town."
Mrs. Cameron entered and greeted Phil with motherly tenderness.
"Captain, you"re so much like my boy! Had you noticed it, Margaret?"
"Of course, Mamma, but I was afraid I"d tire him with flattery if I tried to tell him."
"Only his hair is light and wavy, and Ben"s straight and black, or you"d call them twins. Ben"s a little taller--excuse us, Captain Stoneman, but we"ve fallen so in love with your little sister we feel we"ve known you all our lives."
"I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Cameron, your flattery is very sweet. Elsie and I do not remember our mother, and all this friendly criticism is more than welcome."
"Mamma, Captain Stoneman asks me to go with him and his sister to-night to see the President at the theatre. May I go?"
"Will the President be there, Captain?" asked Mrs. Cameron.
"Yes, Madam, with General and Mrs. Grant--it"s really a great public function in celebration of peace and victory. To-day the flag was raised over Fort Sumter, the anniversary of its surrender four years ago. The city will be illuminated."
"Then, of course, you can go. I will sit with Ben. I wish you to see the President."
At seven o"clock Phil called for Margaret. They walked to the Capitol hill and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The city was in a ferment. Vast crowds thronged the streets. In front of the hotel where General Grant stopped the throng was so dense the streets were completely blocked. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, at every turn, in squads, in companies, in regimental crowds, shouting cries of victory.
The display of lights was dazzling in its splendour. Every building in every street, in every nook and corner of the city, was lighted from attic to cellar. The public buildings and churches vied with each other in the magnificence of their decorations and splendour of illuminations.
They turned a corner, and suddenly the Capitol on the throne of its imperial hill loomed a grand constellation in the heavens! Another look, and it seemed a huge bonfire against the background of the dark skies.
Every window in its labyrinths of marble, from the ma.s.sive base to its crowning statue of Freedom, gleamed and flashed with light--more than ten thousand jets poured their rays through its windows, besides the innumerable lights that circled the mighty dome within and without.
Margaret stopped, and Phil felt her soft hand grip his arm with sudden emotion.
"Isn"t it sublime!" she whispered.
"Glorious!" he echoed.
But he was thinking of the pressure of her hand on his arm and the subtle tones of her voice. Somehow he felt that the light came from her eyes. He forgot the Capitol and the surging crowds before the sweeter creative wonder silently growing in his soul.
"And yet," she faltered, "when I think of what all this means for our people at home--their sorrow and poverty and ruin--you know it makes me faint."
Phil"s hand timidly sought the soft one resting on his arm and touched it reverently.
"Believe me, Miss Margaret, it will be all for the best in the end. The South will yet rise to a n.o.bler life than she has ever lived in the past.
This is her victory as well as ours."
"I wish I could think so," she answered.
They pa.s.sed the City Hall and saw across its front, in giant letters of fire thirty feet deep, the words:
"UNION, SHERMAN, AND GRANT"