If she would fling down
the glove on the temperance question, it seemed to him that it would be
in him to pick it up; for the idea of a meddling legislation on this
subject filled him with rage; the taste of liquor being good to him, and
his conviction strong that civilisation itself would be in danger if it
should fall into the power of a herd of vociferating women (I am but the
reporter of his angry _formulae_) to prevent a gentleman from taking his
glass. Mrs. Farrinder proved to him that she had not the eagerness of
insecurity; she asked him if he wouldn't like to give the company some
account of the social and political condition of the South. He begged to
be excused, expressing at the same time a high sense of the honour done
him by such a request, while he smiled to himself at the idea of his
extemporising a lecture. He smiled even while he suspected the meaning
of the look Miss Chancellor gave him: "Well, you are not of much account
after all!" To talk to those people about the South--if they could have
guessed how little he cared to do it! He had a passionate tenderness for
his own country, and a sense of intimate connexion with it which would
have made it as impossible for him to take a roomful of Northern
fanatics into his confidence as to read aloud his mother's or his
mistress's letters.
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