"What with one thing and another, this country of ours has been in a literal state of anarchy for the last year or two.

What the end is going to be, I'm sure I don't see.
"And the immediate cause of all this sort of thing, my dear Madam," he continued, as he rode alongside, "why, it seems to be just that girl Lily, that we had all the trouble about last year.

By the way, what's become of that girl?
Too bad--she was more than half white!" [Illustration: By the way, what's become of that girl ?] "Yes, it is all about that girl Lily," said Josephine slowly, restraining in her own soul the impulse to cry out the truth to him, to tell him why this girl was almost white, why she had features like his own.

"That is the trouble, I am afraid,--that girl Lily, and her problem! If we could understand all of that, perhaps we could see the reason for this anarchy!" The group broke apart, as the exigencies of the road traveled required.

Now and again some conversation passed between the occupants of the carriage and the horsemen who loosely grouped about it as they advanced.