I must tell
you plainly that if you join with brother and his wife in their
tactics it will always end much as it did this morning."
"Well, anyhow, I have that cursed Yankee cub that she went walking
with in my power."
"What! Lieutenant Scoville?"
"Yes; he's a prisoner and Perkins is helping watch him."
"Then I implore you not to let Louise know it. She saw that this
Scoville might have killed you. She is merely friendly toward him
because, instead of treating us rudely, as she was led to believe he
would, he was very polite and considerate when we were in his power.
That wretch Perkins tried to shoot him to-day and probably would
have succeeded but for Louise," and she narrated the circumstances.
Her son frowned only the darker from jealousy and anger.
"Oh, Madison! why won't you see things as they are?" his mother
resumed. "If you had treated this Yankee officer with kindness and
thanked him for his leniency toward us, you would have taken a long
step in her favor. If you were trying to make her hate you, how
could you set about it more skilfully?"
"Mother," he replied doggedly, "if Lou had married me, even if she
had yielded reluctantly, I would have been her slave; but she has
defied me, humiliated and scoffed at me, and I shall never whine and
fawn for her favor again.
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