“Tom!” said the old man.

“Don’t mind him, Father,” said the younger. “His appetite for fighting will soon be over. Even yet I doubt whether we shall ever see a regiment in arms sent from the Southern States against the Union.”

“Do you?” said Tom. “If you stick to your colours, as you say you will, your doubts will be soon set at rest. And I’ll tell you what, if your regiment is brought into the field, I trust that I may find myself opposite to it. You have chosen to forget that we are brothers, and you shall find that I can forget it also.”

“Tom!” said the father, “you should not say such words as that; at any rate, in my presence.”

“It is true, sir,” said he. “A man who speaks as he speaks does not belong to Kentucky, and can be no brother of mine. If I were to meet him face to face, I would as soon shoot him as another;—sooner, because he is a renegade.”

“You are very wicked,—very wicked,” said the old man, rising from his chair,—“very wicked.” And then, leaning on his stick, he left the room.

“Indeed, what he says is true,” said a sweet, soft voice from a sofa in the far corner of the room. “Tom, you are very wicked to speak to your brother thus. Would you take on yourself the part of Cain?”

“He is more silly than wicked, Ada,” said the soldier. “He will have no chance of shooting me, or of seeing me shot. He may succeed in getting himself locked up as a rebel; but I doubt whether he’ll ever go beyond that.”

“If I ever find myself opposite to you with a pistol in my grasp,” said the elder brother, “may my right hand—”

But his voice was stopped, and the imprecation remained unuttered. The girl who had spoken rushed from her seat, and put her hand before his mouth.

“Tom,” she said, “I will never speak to you again if you utter such an oath—never!”

And her eyes flashed fire at his, and made him dumb.

Ada Forster called Mrs Reckenthorpe her aunt, but the connection between them was not so near as that of aunt and niece. Ada, nevertheless, lived with the Reckenthorpes, and had done so for the last two years. She was an orphan, and on the death of her father had followed her father’s sister-in-law from Maine down to Kentucky;—for Mrs Reckenthorpe had come from that farthest and most strait- laced State of the Union, in which people bind themselves by law to drink neither beer, wine, nor spirits, and all go to bed at nine o’clock. But Ada Forster was an heiress, and therefore it was thought well by the elder Reckenthorpes that she should marry one of their sons. Ada Forster was also a beauty, with slim, tall form, very pleasant to the eye; with bright speaking eyes and glossy hair; with ivory teeth of the whitest,—only to be seen now and then when a smile could be won from her; and therefore such a match was thought desirable also by the younger Reckenthorpes. But unfortunately it had been thought desirable by each of them, whereas the father and mother had intended Ada for the soldier.

I have not space in this short story to tell how progress had been made in the troubles of this love affair. So it was now, that Ada had consented to become the wife of the elder brother,—of Tom Reckenthorpe, with his home among the slaves,—although she, with all her New England feelings strong about her, hated slavery and all its adjuncts. But when has Love stayed to be guided by any such consideration as that? Tom Reckenthorpe was a handsome, high-spirited, intelligent man. So was his brother Frank. But Tom Reckenthorpe could be soft to a woman, and in that, I think, had he found the means of his success. Frank Reckenthorpe was never soft.