One

Two gentlemen were seated, one March morning in 189--, in the private

office of French and Company, Limited, on lower Broadway. Mr. Kirby,

the junior partner--a man of thirty-five, with brown hair and

mustache, clean-cut, handsome features, and an alert manner, was

smoking cigarettes almost as fast as he could roll them, and at the

same time watching the electric clock upon the wall and getting up now

and then to stride restlessly back and forth across the room.

Mr. French, the senior partner, who sat opposite Kirby, was an older

man--a safe guess would have placed him somewhere in the debatable

ground between forty and fifty; of a good height, as could be seen

even from the seated figure, the upper part of which was held erect

with the unconscious ease which one associates with military training.

His closely cropped brown hair had the slightest touch of gray. The

spacious forehead, deep-set gray eyes, and firm chin, scarcely

concealed by a light beard, marked the thoughtful man of affairs. His

face indeed might have seemed austere, but for a sensitive mouth,

which suggested a reserve of humour and a capacity for deep feeling. A

man of well-balanced character, one would have said, not apt to

undertake anything lightly, but sure to go far in whatever he took in

hand; quickly responsive to a generous impulse, and capable of a

righteous indignation; a good friend, a dangerous enemy; more likely

to be misled by the heart than by the head; of the salt of the earth,

which gives it savour.

Mr. French sat on one side, Mr. Kirby on the other, of a handsome,

broad-topped mahogany desk, equipped with telephones and push buttons,

and piled with papers, account books and letter files in orderly

array. In marked contrast to his partner's nervousness, Mr. French

scarcely moved a muscle, except now and then to take the cigar from

his lips and knock the ashes from the end.

"Nine fifty!" ejaculated Mr. Kirby, comparing the clock with his

watch. "Only ten minutes more."

Mr. French nodded mechanically. Outside, in the main office, the same

air of tense expectancy prevailed. For two weeks the office force had

been busily at work, preparing inventories and balance sheets. The

firm of French and Company, Limited, manufacturers of crashes and

burlaps and kindred stuffs, with extensive mills in Connecticut, and

central offices in New York, having for a long time resisted the siren

voice of the promoter, had finally faced the alternative of selling

out, at a sacrifice, to the recently organised bagging trust, or of

meeting a disastrous competition. Expecting to yield in the end, they

had fought for position--with brilliant results. Negotiations for a

sale, upon terms highly favourable to the firm, had been in progress

for several weeks; and the two partners were awaiting, in their

private office, the final word. Should the sale be completed, they

were richer men than they could have hoped to be after ten years more

of business stress and struggle; should it fail, they were heavy

losers, for their fight had been expensive. They were in much the same

position as the player who had staked the bulk of his fortune on the

cast of a die. Not meaning to risk so much, they had been drawn into

it; but the game was worth the candle.

"Nine fifty-five," said Kirby. "Five minutes more!"

He strode over to the window and looked out. It was snowing, and the

March wind, blowing straight up Broadway from the bay, swept the white

flakes northward in long, feathery swirls. Mr. French preserved his

rigid attitude, though a close observer might have wondered whether it

was quite natural, or merely the result of a supreme effort of will.

Work had been practically suspended in the outer office. The clerks

were also watching the clock. Every one of them knew that the board of

directors of the bagging trust was in session, and that at ten o'clock

it was to report the result of its action on the proposition of French

and Company, Limited. The clerks were not especially cheerful; the

impending change meant for them, at best, a change of masters, and for

many of them, the loss of employment. The firm, for relinquishing its

business and good will, would receive liberal compensation; the

clerks, for their skill, experience, and prospects of advancement,

would receive their discharge. What else could be expected? The

principal reason for the trust's existence was economy of

administration; this was stated, most convincingly, in the prospectus.

There was no suggestion, in that model document, that competition

would be crushed, or that, monopoly once established, labour must

sweat and the public groan in order that a few captains, or

chevaliers, of industry, might double their dividends. Mr. French may

have known it, or guessed it, but he was between the devil and the

deep sea--a victim rather than an accessory--he must take what he

could get, or lose what he had.

"Nine fifty-nine!"

Kirby, as he breathed rather than spoke the words, threw away his

scarcely lighted cigarette, and gripped the arms of his chair

spasmodically. His partner's attitude had not varied by a hair's

breadth; except for the scarcely perceptible rise and fall of his

chest he might have been a wax figure. The pallor of his countenance

would have strengthened the illusion.

Kirby pushed his chair back and sprung to his feet. The clock marked

the hour, but nothing happened. Kirby was wont to say, thereafter,

that the ten minutes that followed were the longest day of his life.

But everything must have an end, and their suspense was terminated by

a telephone call. Mr. French took down the receiver and placed it to

his ear.

"It's all right," he announced, looking toward his partner. "Our

figures accepted--resolution adopted--settlement to-morrow. We

are----"

The receiver fell upon the table with a crash. Mr. French toppled

over, and before Kirby had scarcely realised that something was the

matter, had sunk unconscious to the floor, which, fortunately, was

thickly carpeted.

It was but the work of a moment for Kirby to loosen his partner's

collar, reach into the recesses of a certain drawer in the big desk,

draw out a flask of brandy, and pour a small quantity of the burning

liquid down the unconscious man's throat. A push on one of the

electric buttons summoned a clerk, with whose aid Mr. French was

lifted to a leather-covered couch that stood against the wall. Almost

at once the effect of the stimulant was apparent, and he opened his

eyes.

"I suspect," he said, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "that I must

have fainted--like a woman--perfectly ridiculous."

"Perfectly natural," replied his partner. "You have scarcely slept for

two weeks--between the business and Phil--and you've reached the end

of your string. But it's all over now, except the shouting, and you

can sleep a week if you like. You'd better go right up home. I'll send

for a cab, and call Dr. Moffatt, and ask him to be at the hotel by the

time you reach it. I'll take care of things here to-day, and after a

good sleep you'll find yourself all right again."

"Very well, Kirby," replied Mr. French, "I feel as weak as water, but

I'm all here. It might have been much worse. You'll call up Mrs.

Jerviss, of course, and let her know about the sale?"

When Mr. French, escorted to the cab by his partner, and accompanied

by a clerk, had left for home, Kirby rang up the doctor, and requested

him to look after Mr. French immediately. He then called for another

number, and after the usual delay, first because the exchange girl was

busy, and then because the line was busy, found himself in

communication with the lady for whom he had asked.

"It's all right, Mrs. Jerviss," he announced without preliminaries.

"Our terms accepted, and payment to be made, in cash and bonds, as

soon as the papers are executed, when you will be twice as rich as you

are to-day."

"Thank you, Mr. Kirby! And I suppose I shall never have another happy

moment until I know what to do with it. Money is a great trial. I

often envy the poor."

Kirby smiled grimly. She little knew how near she had been to ruin.

The active partners had mercifully shielded her, as far as possible,

from the knowledge of their common danger. If the worst happened, she

must know, of course; if not, then, being a woman whom they both

liked--she would be spared needless anxiety. How closely they had

skirted the edge of disaster she did not learn until afterward;

indeed, Kirby himself had scarcely appreciated the true situation, and

even the senior partner, since he had not been present at the meeting

of the trust managers, could not know what had been in their minds.

But Kirby's voice gave no hint of these reflections. He laughed a

cheerful laugh. "If the world only knew," he rejoined, "it would

cease to worry about the pains of poverty, and weep for the woes of

wealth."

"Indeed it would!" she replied, with a seriousness which seemed almost

sincere. "Is Mr. French there? I wish to thank him, too."

"No, he has just gone home."

"At this hour?" she exclaimed, "and at such a time? What can be the

matter? Is Phil worse?"

"No, I think not. Mr. French himself had a bad turn, for a few

minutes, after we learned the news."

Faces are not yet visible over the telephone, and Kirby could not see

that for a moment the lady's grew white. But when she spoke again the

note of concern in her voice was very evident.

"It was nothing--serious?"

"Oh, no, not at all, merely overwork, and lack of sleep, and the

suspense--and the reaction. He recovered almost immediately, and one

of the clerks went home with him."

"Has Dr. Moffatt been notified?" she asked.

"Yes, I called him up at once; he'll be at the Mercedes by the time

the patient arrives."

There was a little further conversation on matters of business, and

Kirby would willingly have prolonged it, but his news about Mr. French

had plainly disturbed the lady's equanimity, and Kirby rang off, after

arranging to call to see her in person after business hours.

Mr. Kirby hung up the receiver with something of a sigh.

"A fine woman," he murmured, "I could envy French his chances, though

he doesn't seem to see them--that is, if I were capable of envy toward

so fine a fellow and so good a friend. It's curious how clearsighted a

man can be in some directions, and how blind in others."

Mr. French lived at the Mercedes, an uptown apartment hotel

overlooking Central Park. He had scarcely reached his apartment, when

the doctor arrived--a tall, fair, fat practitioner, and one of the

best in New York; a gentleman as well, and a friend, of Mr. French.

"My dear fellow," he said, after a brief examination, "you've been

burning the candle at both ends, which, at your age won't do at all.

No, indeed! No, indeed! You've always worked too hard, and you've been

worrying too much about the boy, who'll do very well now, with care.

You've got to take a rest--it's all you need. You confess to no bad

habits, and show the signs of none; and you have a fine constitution.

I'm going to order you and Phil away for three months, to some mild

climate, where you'll be free from business cares and where the boy

can grow strong without having to fight a raw Eastern spring. You

might try the Riviera, but I'm afraid the sea would be too much for

Phil just yet; or southern California--but the trip is tiresome. The

South is nearer at hand. There's Palm Beach, or Jekyll Island, or

Thomasville, Asheville, or Aiken--somewhere down in the pine country.

It will be just the thing for the boy's lungs, and just the place for

you to rest. Start within a week, if you can get away. In fact, you've

_got_ to get away."

Mr. French was too weak to resist--both body and mind seemed strangely

relaxed--and there was really no reason why he should not go. His work

was done. Kirby could attend to the formal transfer of the business.

He would take a long journey to some pleasant, quiet spot, where he

and Phil could sleep, and dream and ride and drive and grow strong,

and enjoy themselves. For the moment he felt as though he would never

care to do any more work, nor would he need to, for he was rich

enough. He would live for the boy. Phil's education, his health, his

happiness, his establishment in life--these would furnish occupation

enough for his well-earned retirement.

It was a golden moment. He had won a notable victory against greed and

craft and highly trained intelligence. And yet, a year later, he was

to recall this recent past with envy and regret; for in the meantime

he was to fight another battle against the same forces, and others

quite as deeply rooted in human nature. But he was to fight upon a new

field, and with different weapons, and with results which could not be

foreseen.

But no premonition of impending struggle disturbed Mr. French's

pleasant reverie; it was broken in a much more agreeable manner by the

arrival of a visitor, who was admitted by Judson, Mr. French's man.

The visitor was a handsome, clear-eyed, fair-haired woman, of thirty

or thereabouts, accompanied by another and a plainer woman, evidently

a maid or companion. The lady was dressed with the most expensive

simplicity, and her graceful movements were attended by the rustle of

unseen silks. In passing her upon the street, any man under ninety

would have looked at her three times, the first glance instinctively

recognising an attractive woman, the second ranking her as a lady;

while the third, had there been time and opportunity, would have been

the long, lingering look of respectful or regretful admiration.

"How is Mr. French, Judson?" she inquired, without dissembling her

anxiety.

"He's much better, Mrs. Jerviss, thank you, ma'am."

"I'm very glad to hear it; and how is Phil?"

"Quite bright, ma'am, you'd hardly know that he'd been sick. He's

gaining strength rapidly; he sleeps a great deal; he's asleep now,

ma'am. But, won't you step into the library? There's a fire in the

grate, and I'll let Mr. French know you are here."

But Mr. French, who had overheard part of the colloquy, came forward

from an adjoining room, in smoking jacket and slippers.

"How do you do?" he asked, extending his hand. "It was mighty good of

you to come to see me."

"And I'm awfully glad to find you better," she returned, giving him

her slender, gloved hand with impulsive warmth. "I might have

telephoned, but I wanted to see for myself. I felt a part of the blame

to be mine, for it is partly for me, you know, that you have been

overworking."

"It was all in the game," he said, "and we have won. But sit down and

stay awhile. I know you'll pardon my smoking jacket. We are partners,

you know, and I claim an invalid's privilege as well."

The lady's fine eyes beamed, and her fair cheek flushed with pleasure.

Had he only realised it, he might have claimed of her any privilege a

woman can properly allow, even that of conducting her to the altar.

But to him she was only, thus far, as she had been for a long time, a

very good friend of his own and of Phil's; a former partner's widow,

who had retained her husband's interest in the business; a wholesome,

handsome woman, who was always excellent company and at whose table he

had often eaten, both before and since her husband's death. Nor,

despite Kirby's notions, was he entirely ignorant of the lady's

partiality for himself.

"Doctor Moffatt has ordered Phil and me away, for three months," he

said, after Mrs. Jerviss had inquired particularly concerning his

health and Phil's.

"Three months!" she exclaimed with an accent of dismay. "But you'll be

back," she added, recovering herself quickly, "before the vacation

season opens?"

"Oh, certainly; we shall not leave the country."

"Where are you going?"

"The doctor has prescribed the pine woods. I shall visit my old home,

where I was born. We shall leave in a day or two."

"You must dine with me to-morrow," she said warmly, "and tell me about

your old home. I haven't had an opportunity to thank you for making me

rich, and I want your advice about what to do with the money; and I'm

tiring you now when you ought to be resting."

"Do not hurry," he said. "It is almost a pleasure to be weak and

helpless, since it gives me the privilege of a visit from you."

She lingered a few moments and then went. She was the embodiment of

good taste and knew when to come and when to go.

Mr. French was conscious that her visit, instead of tiring him, had

had an opposite effect; she had come and gone like a pleasant breeze,

bearing sweet odours and the echo of distant music. Her shapely hand,

when it had touched his own, had been soft but firm; and he had almost

wished, as he held it for a moment, that he might feel it resting on

his still somewhat fevered brow. When he came back from the South, he

would see a good deal of her, either at the seaside, or wherever she

might spend the summer.

When Mr. French and Phil were ready, a day or two later, to start upon

their journey, Kirby was at the Mercedes to see them off.

"You're taking Judson with you to look after the boy?" he asked.

"No," replied Mr. French, "Judson is in love, and does not wish to

leave New York. He will take a vacation until we return. Phil and I

can get along very well alone."

Kirby went with them across the ferry to the Jersey side, and through

the station gates to the waiting train. There was a flurry of snow in

the air, and overcoats were comfortable. When Mr. French had turned

over his hand luggage to the porter of the Pullman, they walked up and

down the station platform.

"I'm looking for something to interest us," said Kirby, rolling a

cigarette. "There's a mining proposition in Utah, and a trolley

railroad in Oklahoma. When things are settled up here, I'll take a run

out, and look the ground over, and write to you."

"My dear fellow," said his friend, "don't hurry. Why should I make any

more money? I have all I shall ever need, and as much as will be good

for Phil. If you find a good thing, I can help you finance it; and

Mrs. Jerviss will welcome a good investment. But I shall take a long

rest, and then travel for a year or two, and after that settle down

and take life comfortably."

"That's the way you feel now," replied Kirby, lighting another

cigarette, "but wait until you are rested, and you'll yearn for the

fray; the first million only whets the appetite for more."

"All aboard!"

The word was passed along the line of cars. Kirby took leave of Phil,

into whose hand he had thrust a five-dollar bill, "To buy popcorn on

the train," he said, kissed the boy, and wrung his ex-partner's hand

warmly.

"Good-bye," he said, "and good luck. You'll hear from me soon. We're

partners still, you and I and Mrs. Jerviss."

And though Mr. French smiled acquiescence, and returned Kirby's hand

clasp with equal vigour and sincerity, he felt, as the train rolled

away, as one might feel who, after a long sojourn in an alien land, at

last takes ship for home. The mere act of leaving New York, after the

severance of all compelling ties, seemed to set in motion old currents

of feeling, which, moving slowly at the start, gathered momentum as

the miles rolled by, until his heart leaped forward to the old

Southern town which was his destination, and he soon felt himself

chafing impatiently at any delay that threatened to throw the train

behind schedule time.

"He'll be back in six weeks," declared Kirby, when Mrs. Jerviss and he

next met. "I know him well; he can't live without his club and his

counting room. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks."

"And I'm sure he'll not stay away longer than three months," said the

lady confidently, "for I have invited him to my house party."

"A privilege," said Kirby gallantly, "for which many a man would come

from the other end of the world."

But they were both mistaken. For even as they spoke, he whose future

each was planning, was entering upon a new life of his own, from which

he was to look back upon his business career as a mere period of

preparation for the real end and purpose of his earthly existence.

_Two_

The hack which the colonel had taken at the station after a two-days'

journey, broken by several long waits for connecting trains, jogged in

somewhat leisurely fashion down the main street toward the hotel. The

colonel, with his little boy, had left the main line of railroad

leading north and south and had taken at a certain way station the one

daily train for Clarendon, with which the express made connection.

They had completed the forty-mile journey in two or three hours,

arriving at Clarendon at noon.

It was an auspicious moment for visiting the town. It is true that the

grass grew in the street here and there, but the sidewalks were

separated from the roadway by rows of oaks and elms and china-trees in

early leaf. The travellers had left New York in the midst of a

snowstorm, but here the scent of lilac and of jonquil, the song of

birds, the breath of spring, were all about them. The occasional

stretches of brick sidewalk under their green canopy looked cool and

inviting; for while the chill of winter had fled and the sultry heat

of summer was not yet at hand, the railroad coach had been close and

dusty, and the noonday sun gave some slight foretaste of his coming

reign.

The colonel looked about him eagerly. It was all so like, and yet so

different--shrunken somewhat, and faded, but yet, like a woman one

loves, carried into old age something of the charm of youth. The old

town, whose ripeness was almost decay, whose quietness was scarcely

distinguishable from lethargy, had been the home of his youth, and he

saw it, strange to say, less with the eyes of the lad of sixteen who

had gone to the war, than with those of the little boy to whom it had

been, in his tenderest years, the great wide world, the only world he

knew in the years when, with his black boy Peter, whom his father had

given to him as a personal attendant, he had gone forth to field and

garden, stream and forest, in search of childish adventure. Yonder was

the old academy, where he had attended school. The yellow brick of its

walls had scaled away in places, leaving the surface mottled with pale

splotches; the shingled roof was badly dilapidated, and overgrown here

and there with dark green moss. The cedar trees in the yard were in

need of pruning, and seemed, from their rusty trunks and scant

leafage, to have shared in the general decay. As they drove down the

street, cows were grazing in the vacant lot between the bank, which

had been built by the colonel's grandfather, and the old red brick

building, formerly a store, but now occupied, as could be seen by the

row of boxes visible through the open door, by the post-office.

The little boy, an unusually handsome lad of five or six, with blue

eyes and fair hair, dressed in knickerbockers and a sailor cap, was

also keenly interested in the surroundings. It was Saturday, and the

little two-wheeled carts, drawn by a steer or a mule; the pigs

sleeping in the shadow of the old wooden market-house; the lean and

sallow pinelanders and listless negroes dozing on the curbstone, were

all objects of novel interest to the boy, as was manifest by the light

in his eager eyes and an occasional exclamation, which in a clear

childish treble, came from his perfectly chiselled lips. Only a glance

was needed to see that the child, though still somewhat pale and

delicate from his recent illness, had inherited the characteristics

attributed to good blood. Features, expression, bearing, were marked

by the signs of race; but a closer scrutiny was required to discover,

in the blue-eyed, golden-haired lad, any close resemblance to the

shrewd, dark man of affairs who sat beside him, and to whom this

little boy was, for the time being, the sole object in life.

But for the child the colonel was alone in the world. Many years

before, when himself only a boy, he had served in the Southern army,

in a regiment which had fought with such desperate valour that the

honour of the colonelcy had come to him at nineteen, as the sole

survivor of the group of young men who had officered the regiment. His

father died during the last year of the Civil War, having lived long

enough to see the conflict work ruin to his fortunes. The son had been

offered employment in New York by a relative who had sympathised with

the South in her struggle; and he had gone away from Clarendon. The

old family "mansion"--it was not a very imposing structure, except by

comparison with even less pretentious houses--had been sold upon

foreclosure, and bought by an ambitious mulatto, who only a few years

before had himself been an object of barter and sale. Entering his

uncle's office as a clerk, and following his advice, reinforced by a

sense of the fitness of things, the youthful colonel had dropped his

military title and become plain Mr. French. Putting the past behind

him, except as a fading memory, he had thrown himself eagerly into the

current of affairs. Fortune favoured one both capable and energetic.

In time he won a partnership in the firm, and when death removed his

relative, took his place at its head.

He had looked forward to the time, not very far in the future, when he

might retire from business and devote his leisure to study and travel,

tastes which for years he had subordinated to the pursuit of wealth;

not entirely, for his life had been many sided; and not so much for

the money, as because, being in a game where dollars were the

counters, it was his instinct to play it well. He was winning already,

and when the bagging trust paid him, for his share of the business, a

sum double his investment, he found himself, at some years less than

fifty, relieved of business cares and in command of an ample fortune.

This change in the colonel's affairs--and we shall henceforth call him

the colonel, because the scene of this story is laid in the South,

where titles are seldom ignored, and where the colonel could hardly

have escaped his own, even had he desired to do so--this change in the

colonel's affairs coincided with that climacteric of the mind, from

which, without ceasing to look forward, it turns, at times, in wistful

retrospect, toward the distant past, which it sees thenceforward

through a mellowing glow of sentiment. Emancipated from the counting

room, and ordered South by the doctor, the colonel's thoughts turned

easily and naturally to the old town that had given him birth; and he

felt a twinge of something like remorse at the reflection that never

once since leaving it had he set foot within its borders. For years he

had been too busy. His wife had never manifested any desire to visit

the South, nor was her temperament one to evoke or sympathise with

sentimental reminiscence. He had married, rather late in life, a New

York woman, much younger than himself; and while he had admired her

beauty and they had lived very pleasantly together, there had not

existed between them the entire union of souls essential to perfect

felicity, and the current of his life had not been greatly altered by

her loss.

Toward little Phil, however, the child she had borne him, his feeling

was very different. His young wife had been, after all, but a sweet

and pleasant graft upon a sturdy tree. Little Phil was flesh of his

flesh and bone of his bone. Upon his only child the colonel lavished

all of his affection. Already, to his father's eye, the boy gave

promise of a noble manhood. His frame was graceful and active. His

hair was even more brightly golden than his mother's had been; his

eyes more deeply blue than hers; while his features were a duplicate

of his father's at the same age, as was evidenced by a faded

daguerreotype among the colonel's few souvenirs of his own childhood.

Little Phil had a sweet temper, a loving disposition, and endeared

himself to all with whom he came in contact.

The hack, after a brief passage down the main street, deposited the

passengers at the front of the Clarendon Hotel. The colonel paid the

black driver the quarter he demanded--two dollars would have been the

New York price--ran the gauntlet of the dozen pairs of eyes in the

heads of the men leaning back in the splint-bottomed armchairs under

the shade trees on the sidewalk, registered in the book pushed forward

by a clerk with curled mustaches and pomatumed hair, and accompanied

by Phil, followed the smiling black bellboy along a passage and up one

flight of stairs to a spacious, well-lighted and neatly furnished

room, looking out upon the main street.

_Three_

When the colonel and Phil had removed the dust and disorder of travel

from their appearance, they went down to dinner. After they had eaten,

the colonel, still accompanied by the child, left the hotel, and

following the main street for a short distance, turned into another

thoroughfare bordered with ancient elms, and stopped for a moment

before an old gray house with high steps and broad piazza--a large,

square-built, two-storied house, with a roof sloping down toward the

front, broken by dormer windows and buttressed by a massive brick

chimney at either end. In spite of the gray monotone to which the

paintless years had reduced the once white weatherboarding and green

Venetian blinds, the house possessed a certain stateliness of style

which was independent of circumstance, and a solidity of construction

that resisted sturdily the disintegrating hand of time. Heart-pine and

live-oak, mused the colonel, like other things Southern, live long

and die hard. The old house had been built of the best materials, and

its woodwork dowelled and mortised and tongued and grooved by men who

knew their trade and had not learned to scamp their work. For the

colonel's grandfather had built the house as a town residence, the

family having owned in addition thereto a handsome country place upon

a large plantation remote from the town.

The colonel had stopped on the opposite side of the street and was

looking intently at the home of his ancestors and of his own youth,

when a neatly dressed coloured girl came out on the piazza, seated

herself in a rocking-chair with an air of proprietorship, and opened

what the colonel perceived to be, even across the street, a copy of a

woman's magazine whose circulation, as he knew from the advertising

rates that French and Co. had paid for the use of its columns, touched

the million mark. Not wishing to seem rude, the colonel moved slowly

on down the street. When he turned his head, after going a rod or two,

and looked back over his shoulder, the girl had risen and was

re-entering the house. Her disappearance was promptly followed by the

notes of a piano, slightly out of tune, to which some one--presumably

the young woman--was singing in a high voice, which might have been

better had it been better trained,

_"I dreamt that I dwe-elt in ma-arble halls

With vassals and serfs at my si-i-ide."_

The colonel had slackened his pace at the sound of the music, but,

after the first few bars, started forward with quickened footsteps

which he did not relax until little Phil's weight, increasing

momentarily, brought home to him the consciousness that his stride was

too long for the boy's short legs. Phil, who was a thoroughbred, and

would have dropped in his tracks without complaining, was nevertheless

relieved when his father's pace returned to the normal.

Their walk led down a hill, and, very soon, to a wooden bridge which

spanned a creek some twenty feet below. The colonel paused for a

moment beside the railing, and looked up and down the stream. It

seemed narrower and more sluggish than his memory had pictured it.

Above him the water ran between high banks grown thick with underbrush

and over-arching trees; below the bridge, to the right of the creek,

lay an open meadow, and to the left, a few rods away, the ruins of the

old Eureka cotton mill, which in his boyhood had harboured a

flourishing industry, but which had remained, since Sherman's army

laid waste the country, the melancholy ruin the colonel had seen it

last, when twenty-five years or more before, he left Clarendon to seek

a wider career in the outer world. The clear water of the creek

rippled harmoniously down a gentle slope and over the site where the

great dam at the foot had stood, while birds were nesting in the vines

with which kindly nature had sought to cloak the dismantled and

crumbling walls.

Mounting the slope beyond the bridge, the colonel's stride now

carefully accommodated to the child's puny step, they skirted a low

brick wall, beyond which white headstones gleamed in a mass of

verdure. Reaching an iron gate, the colonel lifted the latch, and

entered the cemetery which had been the object of their visit.

"Is this the place, papa?" asked the little boy.

"Yes, Phil, but it is farther on, in the older part."

They passed slowly along, under the drooping elms and willows, past

the monuments on either hand--here, resting on a low brick wall, a

slab of marble, once white, now gray and moss-grown, from which the

hand of time had well nigh erased the carved inscription; here a

family vault, built into the side of a mound of earth, from which only

the barred iron door distinguished it; here a pedestal, with a

time-worn angel holding a broken fragment of the resurrection trumpet;

here a prostrate headstone, and there another bending to its fall;

and among them a profusion of rose bushes, on some of which the early

roses were already blooming--scarcely a well-kept cemetery, for in

many lots the shrubbery grew in wild unpruned luxuriance; nor yet

entirely neglected, since others showed the signs of loving care, and

an effort had been made to keep the walks clean and clear.

Father and son had traversed half the width of the cemetery, when they

came to a spacious lot, surrounded by large trees and containing

several monuments. It seemed less neglected than the lots about it,

and as they drew nigh they saw among the tombs a very black and

seemingly aged Negro engaged in pruning a tangled rose tree. Near him

stood a dilapidated basket, partially filled with weeds and leaves,

into which he was throwing the dead and superfluous limbs. He seemed

very intent upon his occupation, and had not noticed the colonel's and

Phil's approach until they had paused at the side of the lot and stood

looking at him.

When the old man became aware of their presence, he straightened

himself up with the slow movement of one stiff with age or rheumatism

and threw them a tentatively friendly look out of a pair of faded

eyes.

"Howdy do, uncle," said the colonel. "Will you tell me whose graves

these are that you are caring for?"

"Yas, suh," said the old man, removing his battered hat

respectfully--the rest of his clothing was in keeping, a picturesque

assortment of rags and patches such as only an old Negro can get

together, or keep together--"dis hyuh lot, suh, b'longs ter de fambly

dat I useter b'long ter--de ol' French fambly, suh, de fines' fambly

in Beaver County."

"Why, papa!" cried little Phil, "he means----"

"Hush, Phil! Go on, uncle."

"Yas, suh, de fines' fambly in Cla'endon, suh. Dis hyuh headstone

hyuh, suh, an' de little stone at de foot, rep'esents de grave er ol'

Gin'al French, w'at fit in de Revolution' Wah, suh; and dis hyuh one

nex' to it is de grave er my ol' marster, Majah French, w'at fit in

de Mexican Wah, and died endyoin' de wah wid de Yankees, suh."

"Papa," urged Phil, "that's my----"

"Shut up, Phil! Well, uncle, did this interesting old family die out,

or is it represented in the present generation?"

"Lawd, no, suh, de fambly did n' die out--'deed dey did n' die out!

dey ain't de kind er fambly ter die out! But it's mos' as bad,

suh--dey's moved away. Young Mars Henry went ter de Norf, and dey say

he's got rich; but he ain't be'n back no mo', suh, an' I don' know

whether he's ever comin' er no."

"You must have been very fond of them to take such good care of their

graves," said the colonel, much moved, but giving no sign.

"Well, suh, I b'longed ter de fambly, an' I ain' got no chick ner

chile er my own, livin', an' dese hyuh dead folks 'pears mo' closer

ter me dan anybody e'se. De cullud folks don' was'e much time wid a

ole man w'at ain' got nothin', an' dese hyuh new w'ite folks wa't is

come up sence de wah, ain' got no use fer niggers, now dat dey don'

b'long ter nobody no mo'; so w'en I ain' got nothin' e'se ter do, I

comes roun' hyuh, whar I knows ev'ybody and ev'ybody knows me, an'

trims de rose bushes an' pulls up de weeds and keeps de grass down

jes' lak I s'pose Mars Henry'd 'a' had it done ef he'd 'a' lived hyuh

in de ole home, stidder 'way off yandah in de Norf, whar he so busy

makin' money dat he done fergot all 'bout his own folks."

"What is your name?" asked the colonel, who had been looking closely

at the old man.

"Peter, suh--Peter French. Most er de niggers change' dey names after

de wah, but I kept de ole fambly name I wuz raise' by. It wuz good

'nuff fer me, suh; dey ain' none better."

"Oh, papa," said little Phil, unable to restrain himself longer, "he

must be some kin to us; he has the same name, and belongs to the same

family, and you know you called him 'Uncle.'"

The old Negro had dropped his hat, and was staring at the colonel and

the little boy, alternately, with dawning amazement, while a look of

recognition crept slowly into his rugged old face.

"Look a hyuh, suh," he said tremulously, "is it?--it can't be!--but

dere's de eyes, an' de nose, an' de shape er de head--why, it _must_

be my young Mars Henry!"

"Yes," said the colonel, extending his hand to the old man, who

grasped it with both his own and shook it up and down with

unconventional but very affectionate vigour, "and you are my boy

Peter; who took care of me when I was no bigger than Phil here!"

This meeting touched a tender chord in the colonel's nature, already

tuned to sympathy with the dead past of which Peter seemed the only

survival. The old man's unfeigned delight at their meeting; his

retention of the family name, a living witness of its former standing;

his respect for the dead; his "family pride," which to the

unsympathetic outsider might have seemed grotesque; were proofs of

loyalty that moved the colonel deeply. When he himself had been a

child of five or six, his father had given him Peter as his own boy.

Peter was really not many years older than the colonel, but prosperity

had preserved the one, while hard luck had aged the other prematurely.

Peter had taken care of him, and taught him to paddle in the shallow

water of the creek and to avoid the suck-holes; had taught him simple

woodcraft, how to fish, and how to hunt, first with bow and arrow, and

later with a shotgun. Through the golden haze of memory the colonel's

happy childhood came back to him with a sudden rush of emotion.

"Those were good times, Peter, when we were young," he sighed

regretfully, "good times! I have seen none happier."

"Yas, suh! yas, suh! 'Deed dem wuz good ole times! Sho' dey wuz, suh,

sho' dey wuz! 'Member dem co'n-stalk fiddles we use' ter make, an' dem

elderberry-wood whistles?"

"Yes, Peter, and the robins we used to shoot and the rabbits we used

to trap?"

"An' dem watermillions, suh--um-m-m, um-m-m-m!"

"_Y-e-s_," returned the colonel, with a shade of pensiveness. There

had been two sides to the watermelon question. Peter and he had not

always been able to find ripe watermelons, early in the season, and at

times there had been painful consequences, the memory of which came

back to the colonel with surprising ease. Nor had they always been

careful about boundaries in those early days. There had been one

occasion when an irate neighbour had complained, and Major French had

thrashed Henry and Peter both--Peter because he was older, and knew

better, and Henry because it was important that he should have

impressed upon him, early in life, that of him to whom much is given,

much will be required, and that what might be lightly regarded in

Peter's case would be a serious offence in his future master's. The

lesson had been well learned, for throughout the course of his life

the colonel had never shirked responsibility, but had made the

performance of duty his criterion of conduct. To him the line of least

resistance had always seemed the refuge of the coward and the

weakling. With the twenty years preceding his return to Clarendon,

this story has nothing to do; but upon the quiet background of his

business career he had lived an active intellectual and emotional

life, and had developed into one of those rare natures of whom it may

be truly said that they are men, and that they count nothing of what

is human foreign to themselves.

But the serenity of Peter's retrospect was unmarred by any passing

cloud. Those who dwell in darkness find it easier to remember the

bright places in their lives.

"Yas, suh, yas, suh, dem watermillions," he repeated with unction, "I

kin tas'e 'em now! Dey wuz de be's watermillions dat evuh growed,

suh--dey doan raise none lack 'em dese days no mo'. An' den dem

chinquapin bushes down by de swamp! 'Member dem chinquapin bushes,

whar we killt dat water moccasin dat day? He wuz 'bout ten foot

long!"

"Yes, Peter, he was a whopper! Then there were the bullace vines, in

the woods beyond the tanyard!"

"Sho' 'nuff, suh! an' de minnows we use' ter ketch in de creek, an'

dem perch in de mill pon'?"

For years the colonel had belonged to a fishing club, which preserved

an ice-cold stream in a Northern forest. For years the choicest fruits

of all the earth had been served daily upon his table. Yet as he

looked back to-day no shining trout that had ever risen to his fly had

stirred his emotions like the diaphanous minnows, caught, with a

crooked pin, in the crooked creek; no luscious fruit had ever matched

in sweetness the sour grapes and bitter nuts gathered from the native

woods--by him and Peter in their far-off youth.

"Yas, suh, yas, suh," Peter went on, "an' 'member dat time you an'

young Mars Jim Wilson went huntin' and fishin' up de country

tergether, an' got ti'ed er waitin' on yo'se'ves an' writ back fer me

ter come up ter wait on yer and cook fer yer, an' ole Marster say he

did n' dare ter let me go 'way off yander wid two keerliss boys lak

you-all, wid guns an' boats fer fear I mought git shot, er drownded?"

"It looked, Peter, as though he valued you more than me! more than his

own son!"

"Yas, suh, yas, suh! sho' he did, sho' he did! old Marse Philip wuz a

monstus keerful man, an' _I_ wuz winth somethin', suh, dem times; I

wuz wuth five hundred dollahs any day in de yeah. But nobody would n'

give five hundred cents fer me now, suh. Dey'd want pay fer takin' me,

mos' lakly. Dey ain' none too much room fer a young nigger no mo', let

'lone a' ol' one."

"And what have you been doing all these years, Peter?" asked the

colonel.

Peter's story was not a thrilling one; it was no tale of inordinate

ambition, no Odyssey of a perilous search for the prizes of life, but

the bald recital of a mere struggle for existence. Peter had stayed by

his master until his master's death. Then he had worked for a

railroad contractor, until exposure and overwork had laid him up with

a fever. After his recovery, he had been employed for some years at

cutting turpentine boxes in the pine woods, following the trail of the

industry southward, until one day his axe had slipped and wounded him

severely. When his wound was healed he was told that he was too old

and awkward for the turpentine, and that they needed younger and more

active men.

"So w'en I got my laig kyo'ed up," said the old man, concluding his

story, "I come back hyuh whar I wuz bo'n, suh, and whar my w'ite folks

use' ter live, an' whar my frien's use' ter be. But my w'ite folks wuz

all in de graveya'd, an' most er my frien's wuz dead er moved away,

an' I fin's it kinder lonesome, suh. I goes out an' picks cotton in de

fall, an' I does arrants an' little jobs roun' de house fer folks w'at

'll hire me; an' w'en I ain' got nothin' ter eat I kin gor oun' ter de

ole house an' wo'k in de gyahden er chop some wood, an' git a meal er

vittles f'om ole Mis' Nichols, who's be'n mighty good ter me, suh.

She's de barbuh's wife, suh, w'at bought ouah ole house. Dey got mo'

dan any yuther colored folks roun' hyuh, but dey he'ps de po', suh,

dey he'ps de po'."

"Which speaks well for them, Peter. I'm glad that all the virtue has

not yet gone out of the old house."

The old man's talk rambled on, like a sluggish stream, while the

colonel's more active mind busied itself with the problem suggested by

this unforeseen meeting. Peter and he had both gone out into the

world, and they had both returned. He had come back rich and

independent. What good had freedom done for Peter? In the colonel's

childhood his father's butler, old Madison, had lived a life which,

compared to that of Peter at the same age, was one of ease and luxury.

How easy the conclusion that the slave's lot had been the more

fortunate! But no, Peter had been better free. There were plenty of

poor white men, and no one had suggested slavery as an improvement of

their condition. Had Peter remained a slave, then the colonel would

have remained a master, which was only another form of slavery. The

colonel had been emancipated by the same token that had made Peter

free. Peter had returned home poor and broken, not because he had been

free, but because nature first, and society next, in distributing

their gifts, had been niggardly with old Peter. Had he been better

equipped, or had a better chance, he might have made a better showing.

The colonel had prospered because, having no Peters to work for him,

he had been compelled to work for himself. He would set his own

success against Peter's failure; and he would take off his hat to the

memory of the immortal statesman, who in freeing one race had

emancipated another and struck the shackles from a Nation's mind.

_Four_

While the colonel and old Peter were thus discussing reminiscences in

which little Phil could have no share, the boy, with childish

curiosity, had wandered off, down one of the shaded paths. When, a

little later, the colonel looked around for him, he saw Phil seated on

a rustic bench, in conversation with a lady. As the boy seemed

entirely comfortable, and the lady not at all disturbed, the colonel

did not interrupt them for a while. But when the lady at length rose,

holding Phil by the hand, the colonel, fearing that the boy, who was a

child of strong impulses, prone to sudden friendships, might be

proving troublesome, left his seat on the flat-topped tomb of his

Revolutionary ancestor and hastened to meet them.

"I trust my boy hasn't annoyed you," he said, lifting his hat.

"Not at all, sir," returned the lady, in a clear, sweet voice, some

haunting tone of which found an answering vibration in the colonel's

memory. "On the contrary, he has interested me very much, and in

nothing more than in telling me his name. If this and my memory do not

deceive me, _you_ are Henry French!"

"Yes, and you are--you are Laura Treadwell! How glad I am to meet you!

I was coming to call this afternoon."

"I'm glad to see you again. We have always remembered you, and knew

that you had grown rich and great, and feared that you had forgotten

the old town--and your old friends."

"Not very rich, nor very great, Laura--Miss Treadwell."

"Let it be Laura," she said with a faint colour mounting in her cheek,

which had not yet lost its smoothness, as her eyes had not faded, nor

her step lost its spring.

"And neither have I forgotten the old home nor the old friends--since

I am here and knew you the moment I looked at you and heard your

voice."

"And what a dear little boy!" exclaimed Miss Treadwell, looking down

at Phil. "He is named Philip--after his grandfather, I reckon?"

"After his grandfather. We have been visiting his grave, and those of

all the Frenches; and I found them haunted--by an old retainer, who

had come hither, he said, to be with his friends."

"Old Peter! I see him, now and then, keeping the lot in order. There

are few like him left, and there were never any too many. But how have

you been these many years, and where is your wife? Did you bring her

with you?"

"I buried her," returned the colonel, "a little over a year ago. She

left me little Phil."

"He must be like her," replied the lady, "and yet he resembles you."

"He has her eyes and hair," said his father. "He is a good little boy

and a lad of taste. See how he took to you at first sight! I can

always trust Phil's instincts. He is a born gentleman."

"He came of a race of gentlemen," she said. "I'm glad it is not to

die out. There are none too many left--in Clarendon. You are going to

like me, aren't you, Phil?" asked the lady.

"I like you already," replied Phil gallantly. "You are a very nice

lady. What shall I call you?"

"Call her Miss Laura, Phil--it is the Southern fashion--a happy union

of familiarity and respect. Already they come back to me, Laura--one

breathes them with the air--the gentle Southern customs. With all the

faults of the old system, Laura--it carried the seeds of decay within

itself and was doomed to perish--a few of us, at least, had a good

time. An aristocracy is quite endurable, for the aristocrat, and

slavery tolerable, for the masters--and the Peters. When we were

young, before the rude hand of war had shattered our illusions, we

were very happy, Laura."

"Yes, we were very happy."

They were walking now, very slowly, toward the gate by which the

colonel had entered, with little Phil between them, confiding a hand

to each.

"And how is your mother?" asked the colonel. "She is living yet, I

trust?"

"Yes, but ailing, as she has been for fifteen years--ever since my

father died. It was his grave I came to visit."

"You had ever a loving heart, Laura," said the colonel, "given to duty

and self-sacrifice. Are you still living in the old place?"

"The old place, only it is older, and shows it--like the rest of us."

She bit her lip at the words, which she meant in reference to herself,

but which she perceived, as soon as she had uttered them, might apply

to him with equal force. Despising herself for the weakness which he

might have interpreted as a bid for a compliment, she was glad that he

seemed unconscious of the remark.

The colonel and Phil had entered the cemetery by a side gate and their

exit led through the main entrance. Miss Laura pointed out, as they

walked slowly along between the elms, the graves of many whom the

colonel had known in his younger days. Their names, woven in the

tapestry of his memory, needed in most cases but a touch to restore

them. For while his intellectual life had ranged far and wide, his

business career had run along a single channel, his circle of

intimates had not been very large nor very variable, nor was his

memory so overlaid that he could not push aside its later impressions

in favour of those graven there so deeply in his youth.

Nearing the gate, they passed a small open space in which stood a

simple marble shaft, erected to the memory of the Confederate Dead.

A wealth of fresh flowers lay at its base. The colonel took off his

hat as he stood before it for a moment with bowed head. But for the

mercy of God, he might have been one of those whose deaths as well as

deeds were thus commemorated.

Beyond this memorial, impressive in its pure simplicity, and between

it and the gate, in an obtrusively conspicuous spot stood a florid

monument of granite, marble and bronze, of glaring design and

strangely out of keeping with the simple dignity and quiet restfulness

of the surroundings; a monument so striking that the colonel paused

involuntarily and read the inscription in bronze letters on the marble

shaft above the granite base:

"'_Sacred to the Memory of

Joshua Fetters and Elizabeth Fetters, his Wife._

"'_Life's work well done,

Life's race well run,

Life's crown well won,

Then comes rest._'"

"A beautiful sentiment, if somewhat trite," said the colonel, "but an

atrocious monument."

"Do you think so?" exclaimed the lady. "Most people think the monument

fine, but smile at the sentiment."

"In matters of taste," returned the colonel, "the majority are always

wrong. But why smile at the sentiment? Is it, for some reason,

inappropriate to this particular case? Fetters--Fetters--the name

seems familiar. Who was Fetters, Laura?"

"He was the speculator," she said, "who bought and sold negroes, and

kept dogs to chase runaways; old Mr. Fetters--you must remember old

Josh Fetters? When I was a child, my coloured mammy used him for a

bogeyman for me, as for her own children."

"'Look out, honey,' she'd say, 'ef you ain' good, ole Mr. Fettuhs 'll

ketch you.'"

Yes, he remembered now. Fetters had been a character in Clarendon--not

an admirable character, scarcely a good character, almost a bad

character; a necessary adjunct of an evil system, and, like other

parasites, worse than the body on which he fed; doing the dirty work

of slavery, and very naturally despised by those whose instrument he

was, but finding consolation by taking it out of the Negroes in the

course of his business. The colonel would have expected Fetters to lie

in an unmarked grave in his own back lot, or in the potter's field.

Had he so far escaped the ruin of the institution on which he lived,

as to leave an estate sufficient to satisfy his heirs and also pay for

this expensive but vulgar monument?

"The memorial was erected, as you see from the rest of the

inscription, 'by his beloved and affectionate son.' That either loved

the other no one suspected, for Bill was harshly treated, and ran away

from home at fifteen. He came back after the war, with money, which he

lent out at high rates of interest; everything he touched turned to

gold; he has grown rich, and is a great man in the State. He was a

large contributor to the soldiers' monument."

"But did not choose the design; let us be thankful for that. It might

have been like his father's. Bill Fetters rich and great," he mused,

"who would have dreamed it? I kicked him once, all the way down Main

Street from the schoolhouse to the bank--and dodged his angry mother

for a whole month afterward!"

"No one," suggested Miss Laura, "would venture to cross him now. Too

many owe him money."

"He went to school at the academy," the colonel went on, unwinding the

thread of his memory, "and the rest of the boys looked down on him and

made his life miserable. Well, Laura, in Fetters you see one thing

that resulted from the war--the poor white boy was given a chance to

grow; and if the product is not as yet altogether admirable, taste and

culture may come with another generation."

"It is to be hoped they may," said Miss Laura, "and character as well.

Mr. Fetters has a son who has gone from college to college, and will

graduate from Harvard this summer. They say he is very wild and spends

ten thousand dollars a year. I do not see how it can be possible!"

The colonel smiled at her simplicity.

"I have been," he said, "at a college football game, where the gate

receipts were fifty thousand dollars, and half a million was said to

have changed hands in bets on the result. It is easy to waste money."

"It is a sin," she said, "that some should be made poor, that others

may have it to waste."

There was a touch of bitterness in her tone, the instinctive

resentment (the colonel thought) of the born aristocrat toward the

upstart who had pushed his way above those no longer strong enough to

resist. It did not occur to him that her feeling might rest upon any

personal ground. It was inevitable that, with the incubus of slavery

removed, society should readjust itself in due time upon a democratic

basis, and that poor white men, first, and black men next, should

reach a level representing the true measure of their talents and their

ambition. But it was perhaps equally inevitable that for a generation

or two those who had suffered most from the readjustment, should

chafe under its seeming injustice.

The colonel was himself a gentleman, and the descendant of a long line

of gentlemen. But he had lived too many years among those who judged

the tree by its fruit, to think that blood alone entitled him to any

special privileges. The consciousness of honourable ancestry might

make one clean of life, gentle of manner, and just in one's dealings.

In so far as it did this it was something to be cherished, but

scarcely to be boasted of, for democracy is impatient of any

excellence not born of personal effort, of any pride save that of

achievement. He was glad that Fetters had got on in the world. It

justified a fine faith in humanity, that wealth and power should have

been attained by the poor white lad, over whom, with a boy's

unconscious brutality, he had tyrannised in his childhood. He could

have wished for Bill a better taste in monuments, and better luck in

sons, if rumour was correct about Fetters's boy. But, these, perhaps,

were points where blood _did_ tell. There was something in blood,

after all, Nature might make a great man from any sort of material:

hence the virtue of democracy, for the world needs great men, and

suffers from their lack, and welcomes them from any source. But fine

types were a matter of breeding and were perhaps worth the trouble of

preserving, if their existence were compatible with the larger good.

He wondered if Bill ever recalled that progress down Main Street in

which he had played so conspicuous a part, or still bore any

resentment toward the other participants?

"Could your mother see me," he asked, as they reached the gate, "if I

went by the house?"

"She would be glad to see you. Mother lives in the past, and you would

come to her as part of it. She often speaks of you. It is only a short

distance. You have not forgotten the way?"

They turned to the right, in a direction opposite to that from which

the colonel had reached the cemetery. After a few minutes' walk, in

the course of which they crossed another bridge over the same winding

creek, they mounted the slope beyond, opened a gate, climbed a short

flight of stone steps and found themselves in an enchanted garden,

where lilac bush and jessamine vine reared their heads high, tulip and

daffodil pushed their way upward, but were all dominated by the

intenser fragrance of the violets.

Old Peter had followed the party at a respectful distance, but, seeing

himself forgotten, he walked past the gate, after they had entered it,

and went, somewhat disconsolately, on his way. He had stopped, and was

looking back toward the house--Clarendon was a great place for looking

back, perhaps because there was little in the town to which to look

forward--when a white man, wearing a tinned badge upon his coat, came

up, took Peter by the arm and led him away, despite some feeble

protests on the old man's part.

_Five_

At the end of the garden stood a frame house with a wide, columned

porch. It had once been white, and the windows closed with blinds that

still retained a faded tint of green. Upon the porch, in a comfortable

arm chair, sat an old lady, wearing a white cap, under which her white

hair showed at the sides, and holding her hands, upon which she wore

black silk mits, crossed upon her lap. On the top step, at opposite

ends, sat two young people--one of them a rosy-cheeked girl, in the

bloom of early youth, with a head of rebellious brown hair. She had

been reading a book held open in her hand. The other was a

long-legged, lean, shy young man, of apparently twenty-three or

twenty-four, with black hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion. From

the jack-knife beside him, and the shavings scattered around, it was

clear that he had been whittling out the piece of pine that he was

adjusting, with some nicety, to a wooden model of some mechanical

contrivance which stood upon the floor beside him. They were a

strikingly handsome couple, of ideally contrasting types.

"Mother," said Miss Treadwell, "this is Henry French--Colonel

French--who has come back from the North to visit his old home and the

graves of his ancestors. I found him in the cemetery; and this is his

dear little boy, Philip--named after his grandfather."

The old lady gave the colonel a slender white hand, thin almost to

transparency.

"Henry," she said, in a silvery thread of voice, "I am glad to see

you. You must excuse my not rising--I can't walk without help. You are

like your father, and even more like your grandfather, and your little

boy takes after the family." She drew Phil toward her and kissed him.

Phil accepted this attention amiably. Meantime the young people had

risen.

"This," said Miss Treadwell, laying her hand affectionately on the

girl's arm, "is my niece Graciella--my brother Tom's child. Tom is

dead, you know, these eight years and more, and so is Graciella's

mother, and she has lived with us."

Graciella gave the colonel her hand with engaging frankness. "I'm sure

we're awfully glad to see anybody from the North," she said. "Are you

familiar with New York?"

"I left there only day before yesterday," replied the colonel.

"And this," said Miss Treadwell, introducing the young man, who, when

he unfolded his long legs, rose to a rather imposing height, "this is

Mr. Ben Dudley."

"The son of Malcolm Dudley, of Mink Run, I suppose? I'm glad to meet

you," said the colonel, giving the young man's hand a cordial grasp.

"His nephew, sir," returned young Dudley. "My uncle never married."

"Oh, indeed? I did not know; but he is alive, I trust, and well?"

"Alive, sir, but very much broken. He has not been himself for years."

"You find things sadly changed, Henry," said Mrs. Treadwell. "They

have never been the same since the surrender. Our people are poor now,

right poor, most of them, though we ourselves were fortunate enough to

have something left."

"We have enough left for supper, mother," interposed Miss Laura

quickly, "to which we are going to ask Colonel French to stay."

"I suppose that in New York every one has dinner at six, and supper

after the theatre or the concert?" said Graciella, inquiringly.

"The fortunate few," returned the colonel, smiling into her eager

face, "who can afford a seat at the opera, and to pay for and digest

two meals, all in the same evening."

"And now, colonel," said Miss Treadwell, "I'm going to see about the

supper. Mother will talk to you while I am gone."

"I must be going," said young Dudley.

"Won't you stay to supper, Ben?" asked Miss Laura.

"No, Miss Laura; I'd like to, but uncle wasn't well to-day and I must

stop by the drug store and get some medicine for him. Dr. Price gave

me a prescription on my way in. Good-bye, sir," he added, addressing

the colonel. "Will you be in town long?"

"I really haven't decided. A day or two, perhaps a week. I am not

bound, at present, by any business ties--am foot-loose, as we used to

say when I was young. I shall follow my inclinations."

"Then I hope, sir, that you'll feel inclined to pay us a long visit

and that I shall see you many times."

As Ben Dudley, after this courteous wish, stepped down from the

piazza, Graciella rose and walked with him along the garden path. She

was tall as most women, but only reached his shoulder.

"Say, Graciella," he asked, "won't you give me an answer."

"I'm thinking about it, Ben. If you could take me away from this dead

old town, with its lazy white people and its trifling niggers, to a

place where there's music and art, and life and society--where there's

something going on all the time, I'd _like_ to marry you. But if I did

so now, you'd take me out to your rickety old house, with your daffy

old uncle and his dumb old housekeeper, and I should lose my own mind

in a week or ten days. When you can promise to take me to New York,

I'll promise to marry you, Ben. I want to travel, and to see things,

to visit the art galleries and libraries, to hear Patti, and to look

at the millionaires promenading on Fifth Avenue--and I'll marry the

man who'll take me there!"

"Uncle Malcolm can't live forever, Graciella--though I wouldn't wish

his span shortened by a single day--and I'll get the plantation. And

then, you know," he added, hesitating, "we may--we may find the

money."

Graciella shook her head compassionately. "No, Ben, you'll never find

the money. There isn't any; it's all imagination--moonshine. The war

unsettled your uncle's brain, and he dreamed the money."

"It's as true as I'm standing here, Graciella," replied Ben,

earnestly, "that there's money--gold--somewhere about the house. Uncle

couldn't imagine paper and ink, and I've seen the letter from my

uncle's uncle Ralph--I'll get it and bring it to you. Some day the

money will turn up, and then may be I'll be able to take you away.

Meantime some one must look after uncle and the place; there's no one

else but me to do it. Things must grow better some time--they always

do, you know."

"They couldn't be much worse," returned Graciella, discontentedly.

"Oh, they'll be better--they're bound to be! They'll just have to be.

And you'll wait for me, won't you, Graciella?"

"Oh, I suppose I'll have to. You're around here so much that every one

else is scared away, and there isn't much choice at the best; all the

young men worth having are gone away already. But you know my

ultimatum--I must get to New York. If you are ready before any one

else speaks, you may take me there."

"You're hard on a poor devil, Graciella. I don't believe you care a

bit for me, or you wouldn't talk like that. Don't you suppose I have

any feelings, even if I ain't much account? Ain't I worth as much as a

trip up North?"

"Why should I waste my time with you, if I didn't care for you?"

returned Graciella, begging the question. "Here's a rose, in token of

my love."

She plucked the flower and thrust it into his hand.

"It's full of thorns, like your love," he said ruefully, as he picked

the sharp points out of his fingers.

"'Faithful are the wounds of a friend,'" returned the girl. "See

Psalms, xxvii: 6."

"Take care of my cotton press, Graciella; I'll come in to-morrow

evening and work on it some more. I'll bring some cotton along to try

it with."

"You'll probably find some excuse--you always do."

"Don't you want me to come?" he asked with a trace of resentment. "I

can stay away, if you don't."

"Oh, you come so often that I--I suppose I'd miss you, if you didn't!

One must have some company, and half a loaf is better than no bread."