I come from the South: that is a bad climate for the tint of the skin." "Is it so ?" exclaimed John Bull,--"worse than the North ?" "Very much worse, sir, in more ways than one." Perhaps Robert Ercildoune was a trifle fairer than his father, but there was still perceptible the shade which marked him as effectually an outcast from the freedom of American society, and the rights of American citizenship, as though it had been the badge of crime or the strait jacket of a madman.

Something of this was manifested in the conversation in which the two were engaged.
"It is folly, Robert, for you to carry your refinement and culture into the ranks as a common soldier, to fight and to die, without thanks.

You are made of too good stuff to serve simply as food for powder." "Better men than I, father, have gone there, and are there to-day; men in every way superior to me." "Perhaps,--yes, if you will have it so.

But what are they?
white men, fighting for their own country and flag, for their own rights of manhood and citizenship, for a present for themselves and a future for their children, for honor and fame.

What is there for you ?" "For one thing, just that of which you spoke.