But here the Deity which protects feminine weakness intervened with the usual miracle.

As he gazed at his wife's troubled face, an apologetic cloud came over his rugged but open brow, and a smile of awkward deprecating embarrassment suffused his eyes.

"I declare to goodness, Mollie, but I must tell you suthin, although I guess I didn't kalkilate to say a word about it.

But, darn it all, I can't keep it in.

No! Lookin' inter that innercent face o' yourn"-- pressing her flushing cheeks between his cool brown hands--"and gazing inter them two truthful eyes"-- they blinked at this moment with a divine modesty--"and thinkin' of what you've just did for your kentry--like them revolutionary women o' '76--I feel like a darned swab of a traitor myself.