Now fell across us the sultry summer; sometimes with rain, and steamy mud to follow; and then with stretches of a burning dryness when the dust curled aloft on the impertinent lip of the wind to fill folk's eyes and faces. There came, too, the shadow of to rest upon us, for the General's health began to flag, and it would look for a while as though he had been marked by death itself. The was never understood by me, and I think the doctor lived no better off; but, as near as one might guess, it arose from the and fringing the river on our south, and on which, morning and evening, I've seen the damps and lying white and thick as a flock of wool—a sight to shake the strongest.  
The General was indeed ill, and with face turning to be while his haggard eye grew ever more bright and hollow. He lost greatly the use of his legs; those members being to a size, and his feet dropsical, so that he could not be said to walk but only hobble. He must be supported, leaning commonly on my arm, though sometimes 's pretty shoulder was his ; for she was with him very constant, reading to him, or passing him a glass, or cheering him with her talk of flippant nothings.
 
With his usual bitterness of resolution the General would each day be up and dressed, and pass the hours on a lounge which Augustus prepared, and where he might lie and through the open command a of the distant Arlington hills.
 
To such a lowness did the General sink that his death was waited for, and the doctor who attended him—and did no good—felt driven to give him the name of it.
 
“For one who is in so high a place,” said the doctor, “must needs have weighty concerns to be put in order; and therefore of all folk he should be shown his end in time.”
 
This was gospel true enough as an abstraction, but in the case of the General that doctor should have known how his business was to cure, and not stand of death. Of this I informed him in such wise that he was at once for leaving the house and never coming back. The loss might have been easily measured had he done so.
 
It was the General himself who told me he was to die; and it stood a , the good patience and sympathy wherewith he went upon the information. One would have supposed it was of my death he talked.
 
“And in the bottom of it,” said he, in conclusion, “I have the chance of meeting her”—pointing to his wife's picture—“and that chance alone would make twenty deaths worth trying. For when we come to the end of it, Major, the heaven they talk of may be true.” This last with a manner of reverie as when hope upholds conviction leaning to a fall.
 
As best it could, my nature fought against a belief that the General would die; but his own word overpowered me. The fear of it, when he told the news, went through me like a spear. Or it was as if a stone were rolled upon my heart.
 
Sick folk, for a rule, are impatient and sharply cross with those about, even with their best beloved. But the General would be the opposite, and was never more tolerant than now when he lay ill; and this kindness made it a privilege and a pleasure to be near him, and not a burden to be borne.
 
Peg, as I have written, was much with him—fresh and sweet as a cluster of violets, about a sick room she was worth her weight in drugs. And the General and she had never so full a space for acquaintance before, and so each day he came to know Peg better and to love her more.
 
There existed throughout this summer a kind of in the crusade against Peg; the Reverend Ely had turned to be as mute as an , while the Reverend Campbell and those harpies whom Noah so confounded were not only silent but deeply out of sight. There was neither sign nor to come from them.
 
The books of account which Peg and I brought away from her mother's on the night when we were dogged, showed all Peg claimed. For the June her detractors of in their lyings, and for three years before and well nigh a twelvemonth to follow, Timberlake was in town, and, after his wedding, constantly with Peg until he sailed. There was left no ground for argument, and that tale, as as it was wicked, fell, knocked on its sinful head.
 
As for the Reverend Campbell himself, I caught sight of him but once. This was accident, and the pleasure of the shortest, for he around a corner like the wind; and although—through an idleness of mind to see him going—I made speed to be at his point of , he, so to say, had . Into what dark he crawled to hide from me I have no hint; but as if that street corner were a corner of the universe and he spilled therefrom into the very abyss of itself, I never caught the picture of his tallow cheeks and festering, lips.
 
This peace for Peg was something due to, a desertion of the town; for everybody—and women-folk especially—not tied by the leg to duties, went seeking cool comfort by the ocean or on the mountains.
 
Eaton himself made one of those who went away; he would have had Peg for company, but she urged—what was true, since the old lady had grown and weakly—that she ought not to leave her mother for so long a space. Eaton agreed with entire good humor to this, and so left Peg behind, and never a qualm or mark of , while he sought his ease by the sea.
 
Eaton from his own view-point might well spare Peg from his plans; he was extremely a man's man, and owning, withal, a hand for the bottle and a promptitude for cards, would the better amuse himself with no wife to be a mortgage on his liberty.
 
Summer is for society what winter is to war; the forces lie all in quarters, and beyond caring for their arms or practicing a drill against the campaign day to dawn, there arises nothing to be called a movement. Indeed, as I've explained, the women—who, as Peg would have it, are the fighting line—for the most part were fled to beach and hill. The town was in its sleep, and society would it only with the of the snows.
 
In the last there were still our three cabinet wives, that is, the ladies Berrien, Branch, and Ingham, to be left about us. These would soon depart; but by this claim or that, they had been brought to lag behind when the great covey of their flounced fellows went whirring away to be cool. Peg never had visited these folk, nor they her, and on those few occasions when official threw them together, the cabinet three, who, like the General's niece, were beneath the sway of the Vice-President's wife—herself a woman of unquestioned place and breeding, and a natural queen, besides,—took to hold from Peg. On her side, Peg passed them by or looked them through as though they had not been, and, if I am to judge, came off from these tiltings with prestige all undimmed.
 
It would have been as good as the play, were I not and spoil to so much soreness in the business, to have watched those tacit joustings of Peg with our old mailed of the drawing rooms. The dauntless Peg crossed glances with the most seasoned of her bad-wishers, and left them ever the worse for those thrustings. If she were wounded, no one learned the bleeding fact; and not even I should know. From the laugh to ring true, and the fine spirit of her, I was fain to conclude that Peg, so far from shrinking, joyed in such silken combats to take place among the flowers and with the music of orchestras stirring the blood; and in the last I am sure she did.
 
Berrien and Branch, and for that matter the clumsy Ingham, would with an invariable politeness, nicely measured to a hair, greet Peg whenever they met with her; and she would accept their courtesy in a cold way of and as though our cabinet gentlemen came of the general press about whose very names she did not know and never would. On such lofty terms a fair peace was maintained, and nothing to rancorously rise above the of a to beat upon any one's shore.
 
The General might have preferred a better cordiality, but he could make no interference.
 
“If to step between a man and his enemy,” he would say, “is to a risk, how much more is he in danger who with the of women?”
 
For one, I much agreed with him, and we both looked on, idle of hand and tongue, while Peg met and foiled the “Redsticks,” as the General named them.
 
Nor would Peg need our aid. I've seen no prouder, braver woman walk across a room, or one of a more nimble or more broadly planted, than our Peg. My spent its days to weave new wreaths for her.
 
It was the Ingham—he of our —to be witless enough to this business of feminine ice with Eaton. Ingham was a girthy person, and one's briefest consideration disclosed him for the vulgar Pennsylvania paper-maker he was. Short and thick of body, with thick legs, thick neck; even his tongue was thick, and his slow wits thickest of all. Of Ingham I shall not forget Jim's estimate.
 
“It aint for Jim,” said that , “to go talkin' sassy about no white gentleman; but as for dish yere Mr. Ingham, thar's a notion ag'in him which goes gropin' about through Jim like d'grace of heaven through a camp meetin'. That Mr. Ingham is mean; he's that mean if he owned a lake he wouldn't give a duck a drink. He's jes' about as pop'lar with Jim as a wet dawg; an' that's d'mortual fac'.”
 
“You don't appear to carry a high estimate of our Secretary of the Treasury,” said I.
 
“'Deed Jim don't, Marse Major,” he replied. “An' jes' let Jim warn you-all. You don't want to disrecollect, Marse Major, that Jim's a heap sight older man than you be, an' while Jim don't deny he's been gettin' duller an' duller ever since you locks up that demijohn, still it's mighty likely Jim's wise an' to a p'int where you-all oughter listen.”
 
“Go on,” said I, “I'm listening.”
 
“Course you-all is listenin',” agreed Jim; “of course you listens, 'cause you has got listenin' sense. That's what Jim likes about you. Now let Jim tell you, Marse Major; that Mr. Ingham's selfish. Jim can see it in his eye. He's all right whilst he's haulin' for his own stack, but you let your intrusrun ag'in his, an' you hyar Jim! that Mr. Ingham 'ud burn your barn to boil his egg quicker than a can kick.”
 
Ingham took up the subject of their wives' coldness with Eaton in an unexpected fashion. I have heard that he was thus set in foolish motion by a fear of trouble at ten paces with the war secretary, and would have him and missed a bullet. He stood under no cloud of , but that dove-like truth was yet to claim him. The General would have been his shield; but Ingham, who regarded the General as chief among the fire-eaters, would be the last to suspect the news.
 
It was on the kibes of a cabinet meeting when Ingham approached Eaton.
 
“Sir,” said Ingham, at his lapels, “sir, there is something of strain between our ladies, about which, if you'll permit, I should like word with you.”
 
“Why, sir,” returned Eaton, seizing the initiative, “I perhaps should tell you that I can not, in her social obligations, control my wife. That, sir, let me say, is work beyond a gentleman. My wife must be her own mistress; and while I know of no just cause why she should refuse to receive or recognize Mrs. Ingham, I must still insist how the right to do both lies wholly in her hands. Personally, I may my wife's refusal of the acquaintance of Mrs. Ingham; however, I stand none the less ready to give you any satisfaction you require.”
 
With this speech, Eaton his brows upon the other in such way of iron menace that without a word our timid treasury gentleman clapped on his hat and went pantingly in quest of safer company.
 
“Was it not a master-stroke?” the General, when he related the flurry. “Eaton had the hill of him in an instant; Napoleon himself could not have exhibited a more military genius.”
 
The General, in his glee, would talk of nothing else throughout the evening; but since I left him at an early hour I was not bored too much. Eaton replied in a manner to his credit when one considers the fact of a surprise; but there dwelt therein no reason for that long- delight in which the General indulged. I was so far fortunate, however, as to soon quit him on that particular night, having work to look after, and so escaped his enthusiasm. Any childishness of satisfaction for little reason, by the General, offensively on my ideal of him, and I would experience no more of it than I might; wherefore I went about my affairs, leaving him in full song, celebrating the cleverness of Eaton, who, to my notion, instead of his smart speeches should have pulled the Ingham nose.
 
While the General was sick on his lounge, and when Peg tired of reading, she would fall to a review of the unremitting politeness upon her by the Van Buren. One might read the pleasure of the General over these tidings in his relaxed face and the heed he offered to each detail. The word of how Van Buren had brought Vaughn of the English and Krudener of the Russians—for these ministers were despots among the legation folk and led them to what social fields they would—gave the General satisfaction; and if there remained a door in his affections which had not yet opened to the little Knickerbocker, Peg's of the secretary's steady yet delicately balanced goodness threw it wide.
 
When the General and I were alone with our nightly pipes—albeit he at the time would be in his bed for sickness—he made his little the great burden of his conversation and was to find in him new excellencies. Time and again he would quote Peg to me for owned of Van Buren and which he feared might otherwise my notice. It was clear “the good little secretary”—Peg's name—was become a first favorite of the General; and to be frank, and for identical reasons, as much should be said of me. I loved any who was good to Peg, and made no bones of showing it. Wherefore, you are to conceive, there arose no dispute between us; instead, we took turn and turn about in our secretary and teaching each other a higher account of the man.
 
Peg would set to the General—it amused him and he would question her concerning such matters—how in this sort or in that, and always in some way of trifles too small for the mind of a man to seize on, the women who followed the social banner of the Vice-President's wife would strive to drive her into obscurity. And this was not wanting of stern effect on the General. The name Calhoun found constant repetition in these tales, and never to give the General delight. And there is this to observe: while Peg spoke of Mrs. Calhoun, the General, for his side, would be thinking only on the Vice-President, and at the end he held even more hateful views of the Carolinian than of Henry Clay himself. Surely, he came finally to be strung like a bow against him.
 
This of disfavor for Calhoun, however, may have had its story. Clay was a beaten beyond question, powerless for further war. Calhoun, on the other hand, was increasing in power; and, active in design and searching for the future, stood forth as an enemy yet to be conquered.
 
“The man is a would-be traitor,” said the General one day when speaking with me of Calhoun and his lines of political resolve. “He should consider, however; I may yet teach him a better .”
 
“He is for your destruction,” said I, “and has been since the Seminole days.”
 
“Nothing is more plain than that,” said the General. “And yet, were he or his people fibered of any , they would not, as an element of assault on me, seek to make tatters of poor Peg. I can not see how they bring themselves to that; for myself, I would not give hand to so a for all the world.”
 
“They would you in for Peg's defence,” I said, recalling Noah's explanation. “They hope to set the women of the land upon you as he who gives to one flagrant of her sins. That is their precious ; they, with their lies of Peg, would shake your power with private home-loving folk whose firesides are clean and who base themselves on chastity. There you have the whole crow-colored scheme of them, with the black impulse which turns them against Peg.”
 
“If they shake me with the people,” said the General, “they should call it the thirteenth of Hercules.”
 
“They should have punishment for all that,” cried I.
 
“Sir, they shall be punished,” retorted the General. “And as for Calhoun, he most of all shall suffer. Mark you this: That man shall never be president. More, he may yet win Gilderoy's elevation at a rope's end.” This last in wrathful whisper like a warning of death.
 
There was spreading reason to talk on Calhoun and his policies. South Carolina, ever , was moving to snap thumb and finger in the National face. The legislature of that had done its treason part; Nullification and its counterpart, Secession, were already agreed on; men were being and arms collected, while medals found Charleston coinage bearing the words, “John C. Calhoun, First President of the Southern Confederacy.”
 
And the restless spirit to it all was no other than Calhoun himself. He was then among his henchmen of the Palmettoes, directing even the very phrases wherewith to deck their fulminations. So much the General knew, not alone from what Peg read daily in the papers, but by the weeded word of ones whom, safe and , we dispatched to find the truth.
 
And yet, in the last, I was sure Calhoun would never mean rebellion and a of his state from the common bonds. On such terms he could not succeed the General for the , which was his ambition. What Calhoun hoped was, by a of threat on his people's part of secession and rebellion, and every whatnot of treason besides, to the General to his will of Nullification; and thus by the one stroke to so fix himself in the van of sentiment that no one might stay his march of White House conquest. And in good truth, thus argued the General.
 
“But he should beware,” said the General. “Calhoun and his cohorts shall not steal a march on the old soldier. They must not go too far. A to do treason exists, and Calhoun is at its head. But the conspiracy is not enough. Marshall lays it down how folk can not think treason, can not talk treason, and that treason to be treason must be acted. There must be the act; and though it be but the act of one, it attaches to every member of the conspiracy and becomes the treason of all. If one man so much as snap a South Carolina flint, that is an act to fall within the law, and the treason is the treason of Calhoun. I say, he should take heed for himself; whether he know it or no, the man walks among .”
 
“But you should be prepared,” I said.
 
“We will go upon the work at once,” returned the General. “Winfield Scott shall proceed to Charleston; the fleet shall in the bay; Castle Pinckney shall have a hundred thousand stand of arms; and we will write to our old Indian fighters, Crockett and Coffee and Houston and Dale and Overton and the rest, to lie ready with one hundred thousand riflemen in Tennessee and North Carolina to overwhelm these rebellionists at the dropping of a handkerchief.”
 
This , I recall, came off one afternoon when the General was in more healthful fettle than stood common during those days of fear for his life. Peg sat with us; indeed, it was news she gave us from a Charleston paper............