Under Southern Skies

Lelia Crofton, although she knows there is some mystery concerning her mother, whom she has not seen for years, and about whom she has made many unsuccessful inquiries to her father, Major Crofton, and to her Aunt Doshey, determines that, inasmuch as her eighteenth birthday is now being celebrated on her father's vast plantation in Louisiana, that she shall insist upon her parent revealing the secret surrounding the disappearance of her mother. Although the Major is pressed hard to tell, he again refuses but in a vision he sees how, years ago, it is the year 1860 now, he lived happily with his wife and baby girl in Savannah, when their happiness is blighted by the elopement of his wife with a young man who had been importuning her to flee with him. Unnerved by the attendant humiliation and desiring to keep the mother's indiscretion from his daughter, the Major goes to Louisiana, where he lives on a big plantation. As the party is in progress Lelia's mother, who years ago had been deserted by her lover, arrives at the Crofton estate and is seen by Steve Daubeney, a suitor who has been rejected by Lelia in favor of Burleigh Mayor. She is brought to the cabin of Aunt Doshey, who recognizes her. Lelia gives a Hallowe'en party, and invites Steve, who has returned from Savannah. He, resolving to make Lelia his wife, tells her that while he was in Savannah he discovered that her mother is not dead and that he has learned all about her, but that if she will marry him he will keep the secret. Lelia agrees. Later, when everything is ready for the wedding Lelia declares that she will not marry Steve. Almost immediately after this utterance Lelia's mother, who has been looking in the window to see her daughter marry, rushes into the house and falls at the feet of Lelia, pleading for forgiveness. In answer to Lelia's request as to who the woman is, Major Crofton tells her that "she is your mother." The Major is greatly surprised at hearing his daughter remark that she is a white woman and asks her who told her that she wasn't. In answer to her father's request, Lelia declares that Steve informed her, promising to keep the secret if she would marry him. Before anyone can lay his hands on Steve he disappears, and Burleigh Mayor, whom Lelia really loves, comforts her. They later become engaged. Fort Sumter is fired upon. Steve is made a private while Burleigh is given an officer's position. Steve, who has an intense hatred for Burleigh, has a gang of toughs capture the of