If the North keeps on this course, then we Southerners must start a country of our own.

Look, man--" He swept about him an arm which included his own wide acres and ours, lying there shimmering clear to the thin line of the old Blue Ridge--"We must fight for these homes!" My mother stirred in her chair, but she made no speech, only looked at my father.
"You forget, Colonel," said my father in his low, deep voice, "that this man Lincoln has not yet been elected, and that even if elected he may prove a greater figure than we think.

He has not yet had chance to learn the South." Orme had been standing silent, his face indifferent or faintly lighted with an habitual cynicism.

Now he broke in.

"He will never be elected," he said emphatically.