The Queen of Sheba and my Cousin the Colonel by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

This slight breeze cleared the atmosphere for the time being. My cousin / Flagg took pains to avoid all but the most indirect allusions to the / war, except when we were alone, and in several small ways / endeavored -- with not too dazzling success -- to be agreeable to Clara. / The transparency of the effort was perhaps the partial cause of its / failure. And then, too, the nature of his little attentions was not / always carefully considered on his part. For example, Mrs. Wesley could / hardly be expected to lend herself with any grace at all to the / proposal he made one sultry June evening to "knock her up" a / mint-julep, "the most refreshing beverage on earth, madam, in hot / weather, I can assure you. " Judge Ashburton Todhunter, of Fauquier / County, had taught him to prepare this pungent elixir from a private / receipt for which the judge had once refused the sum of fifty dollars, / offered to him by Colonel Stanley Bluegrass, of Chattanooga, and this / was at a moment, too, when the judge had been losing very heavily at / draw poker.

"All quiet along the Potomac," whispered the colonel, with a momentary / pride in the pacific relations he had established between himself and / Mrs. Wesley.