Richard held his peace. He felt that this was not the night of all others to discuss politics, and he was at a loss to understand the Colonel's want of selfrestraint. He could not agree with men like Clayton. He felt that the utterance of such inflammatory speeches only added fuel to the smouldering flame. If the ugly jets of threatening smoke that were creeping out everywhere because of the friction between the two sections were in danger of bursting into flame, the first duty of a patriot, according to his creed, was to stand by with pails of water, not with kegs of gunpowder. So, while Clayton's outspoken tirade still filled the room, he with his usual tact did all he could to soften the effect of his words. Then again, he did not want Oliver's feelings hurt.

Malachi's entrance with his tray, just as the subject was getting beyond control, put a stop to the discussion. The learned group of disputants with the other guests quickly separated into little coteries, the older men taking their seats about an opened card-table, on which Malachi had previously deposited several thin glasses and a pair of decanters, the ladies sitting together, and the younger people laughing away in a corner, where Oliver joined them.

Richard and Nathan, now that the danger was averted (they were both natural born peace-makers), stepped across the room to assist in entertaining Miss Clendenning. The little lady had not moved from the chair in which she sat when Oliver relieved her of her fur boots. She rarely did move when once she had chosen a place for herself in a drawing-room. She was the kind of woman who could sit in one place and still be surrounded—by half-moons of adorers if she sat against the wall, by full moons if she sat in the open. She had learned the art when a girl.

"If Clayton would go among these people, my dear Lavinia," said Richard, in a deprecating tone, drawing up a chair and seating himself, beside her, "he would find them very different from what he thinks. Some of the most delightful men I have ever met have come from the States north of us. You know that to be so."

"That depends, Richard, on how far North you go," Miss Clendenning answered, spreading her fan as she spoke, looking in between the sticks as if searching for specimens. "In Philadelphia I find some very delightful houses, quite like our own. In New York—well, I rarely go to New York. The journey is a tiresome one and the hotels abominable. They are too busy there to be comfortable, and I do not like noisy, restless people. They give me a headache."

"Oliver has met some charming people, he tells me," said Richard. "Mr. Slade took him into his own home and treated him quite like a son."

"Of course he did; why not?" Miss Clendenning was erect now, her eyes snapping with roguish indignation. "Anybody would be glad to take Oliver into their home, especially when they have two marriageable daughters. Oliver's bow as he enters a room is a passport to any society in the world, my dear Richard. My Lord Chesterfield Clayton has no better manners nor any sweeter smile than our own Lorenzo. Watch Oliver now as he talks to those girls."

Richard had been watching him; he had hardly taken his eyes from him. Every time he looked at him his heart swelled the more with pride.

"And you think, Lavinia, Mr. Slade invited him because of his manners?" He was sure of it. He only wanted her to confirm it.

"Of course. What else?" and she cut her eye at him knowingly. "How many of the other clerks did he invite? Not one. I wanted to find out and I made Ollie write me. They are queer people, these Northerners. They affect to despise good blood and good breeding and good manners. That's all fol-de-rol—they love it. They are eternally talking of equality—equality; one man as GOOD as another. When they say that one man is as GOOD as another, Richard, they mean that THEY are as good, never the other poor fellow."

"Now, my dear Lavinia, stop a moment," laughed the inventor in protest. "You do not mean to say there are really no gentlemen north of us?"

"Plenty of gentlemen, Richard, but few thoroughbreds. There is a distinction, you know."

"Which do you value most?"

"Oh, the thoroughbred. A gentleman might some time offend you by telling you the truth about yourself or your friends. The thoroughbred, never," and she lifted her hands in mock horror.

"And he could be a rogue and yet his manners would save him?"

"Quite true, dear Richard, quite true. The most charming man I ever met except your dear self"— and she smiled graciously and lowered her voice as if what she was about to tell was in the strictest confidence—"was a shrivelled-up old prince who once called on my father and myself in Vienna. He was as ugly as a crab, and walked with a limp. There had been some words over a card-table, he told me, and the other man fired first. I was a young girl then, but I have never forgotten him to this day. Indeed, my dear Nathan," and she turned to the old musician and laid her wee hand confidingly on his knee, "but for the fact that the princess was a most estimable woman and still alive, I might have been —well, I really forget what I might have been, for I do not remember his name, but it was something most fascinating in five or six syllables. Now all that man ever did to make that unaccountable impression upon me was just to pick up my handkerchief. Oh, Nathan, it really gives me a little quiver to this day! I never watch Oliver bow but I think of my prince. Now I have never found that kind of quality, grace, bearing, presence—whatever you may choose to call it—in the Puritan. He has not time to learn it. He despises such subtle courtesies. They smack of the cavalier and the court to him. He is content with a nod of the head and a hurried handshake. So are his neighbors. They would grow suspicious of each other's honesty if they did more. Tut, tut, my dear Richard! My prince's grooms greeted each other in that way."

Richard and Nathan laughed heartily. "And you only find the manners of the ante-chamber and the throne-room South?" asked the inventor.

"Um—not always. It used to be so in my day and yours, but we are retrograding. It is unpardonable in our case because we have known better. But up there" (and she pointed in the direction of the North Star) "they never did know better; that's some excuse for them."

"Ah, you incorrigible woman, you must not talk so. You have not seen them all. Many of the men who do me the honor to come to my workroom are most delightful persons. Only last week there came one of the most interesting scientists that I have met for—"

"Of course, of course, I have not a doubt of it, my dear Richard, but I am talking of men, my friend, not dried mummies."

Again Richard laughed. One of his greatest pleasures was to draw Miss Clendenning out on topics of this class. He knew she did not believe one- half that she said. It was the way she parried his thrusts that delighted him.

"Well, then, take Mr. Winthrop Pierce Lawrence. No more charming gentleman ever entered my house. You were in London at the time or you would certainly have dined with him here. Mr. Lawrence is not only distinguished as a statesman and a brilliant scholar, but his manners are perfect."

Miss Clendenning turned her head and looked at Richard under her eyelashes. "Where did you say he was from?"

"Boston."

"Boston?" A rippling, gurgling laugh floated through the room.

"Yes, Boston. Why do you laugh?"

"Bostonians, my dear Richard, have habits and customs, never manners. It is impossible that they should. They are seldom underbred, mind you, they are always overbred, and, strange to say, without the slightest sense of humor, for they are all brought up on serious isms and solemn fads. The excitement we have gone through over this outrageous book of this Mrs. Stowe's and all this woman movement is but a part of their training. How is it possible for people who believe in such dreadful persons as this Miss Susan Anthony and that Miss— something-or-other—I forget her name—to know what the word 'home' really means and what graces should adorn it? They could never understand my ugly prince, and he?—well, he would be too polite to tell them what he thought of them. No, my dear Richard, they don't know; they never will know, and they never will be any better."

Oliver had crossed the room and had reached her chair.

"Who will never be any better, you dear Midget?" he cried.

"You, you dear boy, because you could not. Come and sit by me where I can get my hand on you. If I had my way you would never be out of reach of my five fingers."

Oliver brought up a stool and sat at her feet.

"Your Aunt Lavinia, Ollie," said Richard, rising to his feet (this relationship was of the same character as that of Uncle Nathan Gill), "seems to think our manners are retrograding."

"Not yours?" protested Oliver, with a laugh, as he turned quickly toward Miss Clendenning.

"No, you sweetheart, nor yours," answered Miss Clendenning, with a sudden burst of affection. "Come, now, you have lived nearly two years among these dreadful Yankees—what do you think of them?"

"What could I think of people who have been so kind to me? Fred Stone has been like a brother, and so has everybody else."

Mrs. Horn had joined the group and sat listening.

"But their manners, my son," she asked. "Do you see no difference between them and—and—and your father's, for instance?" and she motioned toward Richard who was now moving across the room to speak to other guests.

"Dad is himself and you are yourself and I am myself," replied Oliver with some positiveness. "When people are kind I never stop to think how they do it."

"Lovely," Miss Clendenning whispered to Nathan. "Spoken like a thoroughbred. Yes, he is BETTER than my ugly prince. He would always have remembered how they did it."

"And you see no difference either in the ladies?" continued Mrs. Horn, with increasing interest in her tones. "Are the young girls as sweet and engaging?" She had seen Margaret's name rather often in his letters and wondered what impression she had made upon him. Oliver's eyes flashed and the color mounted to his cheeks. Miss Clendenning saw it and bent forward a little closer to get his answer.

"Well, you see, mother, I do not know a great many, I am so shut up. Miss Grant, whom I wrote you about, is—well, you must see her. She is not the kind of girl that you can describe very well— she really is not the kind of girl that you can describe at all. We have been together all summer, and I stopped at her father's house for a few days when I came down from the mountains. They live in the most beautiful valley you ever saw."

Miss Clendenning was watching him closely. She caught a look that his mother had missed.

"Is she pretty, Ollie?" asked Miss Lavinia.

"She is better than pretty. You would not say the Milo was pretty, would you? There is too much in her for prettiness."

"And are the others like her?" The little lady was only feeling about, trying to put her finger on the pulse of his heart.

"No; there is nobody like her. Nobody I have ever met."

Miss Clendenning was sure now.

Malachi's second entrance—this time with the great china bowl held above his head—again interrupted the general talk.

Since the memory of man no such apple-toddy had ever been brewed!

Even Colonel Clayton, when he tasted it, looked over his glass and nodded approvingly at its creator —a recognition of genius which that happy darky acknowledged by a slight bend of his back, anything else being out of the question by reason of the size of the bowl he was carrying and the presence of his master and of his master's guests.

This deposited on a side table, another bowl filled with Olio—a most surprising and never-to-be-forgotten salad of chicken and celery and any number of other toothsome things—was placed beside it, together with a plate of moonshines and one of Maryland biscuits.

Then came some music, in which Oliver sang and Miss Clendenning played his accompaniments—the old plantation melodies, not the new songs—and next the "wrappings up" in the hall, the host and hostess and the whole party moving out of the drawing- room in a body. Here Nathan, with great gallantry, insisted on getting down on his stiff marrow-bones to put on Miss Clendenning's boots, while the young men and Oliver tied on the girls' hoods, amid "good- byes" and "so glads" that he could come home if only for a day, and that he had not forgotten them, Oliver's last words being whispered in Miss Clendenning's ear informing her that he would come over in the morning and see her about a matter of the greatest importance. And so the door was shut on the last guest.

When the hall was empty Oliver kissed his father good-night, and, slipping his arm around his mother's waist, as he had always done when a boy, the two went slowly upstairs to his little room. He could not wait a minute longer. He must unburden his heart about Margaret. This was what he had come for. If his mother had only seen her it would be so much easier, be said to himself as he pushed open his bedroom door.

"You are greatly improved, my son," she said, with a tone of pride in her voice. "I see the change already." She had lighted the candle and the two were seated on the bed, his arm still around her.

"How, mother?"

"Oh, in everything. The boy is gone out of you. You are more reposeful; more self-reliant. I like your modesty too." She could tell him of his faults, she could also tell him of his virtues.

"And the summer has done you good," she continued. "I felt sure it would. Mr. Slade has been a steadfast friend of yours from the beginning. Tell me now about your new friends. This Miss Grant —is she not the same girl you wrote me about, some mouths ago—the one who drew with you at the art school? Do you like her people?" This thought was uppermost in her mind—had been in fact ever since she first saw Margaret's name in his letters.

"Her mother is lovely and she has got a brother —a Dartmouth man—who is a fine fellow. I liked him from the first moment I saw him;" Oliver answered simply, wondering how he would begin.

"Is her father living?"

"Yes."

"What kind of a man is he?"

"Well—of course, he is not like our people. He is a—well—he always says just what be thinks, you know. But he is a man of character and position." He was speaking for Margaret now. "They have more family portraits than we have." This was said in a tone that was meant to carry weight.

"And people of education?"

"Oh, I should certainly say so. It is nothing but books all over the house. Really, he has more books than Dad." This statement was to strengthen the one regarding the family ancestors—both telling arguments about Kennedy Square.

"And this girl—is she a lady?"

The question somehow put to flight all his mental manoeuvres. "She is more than a lady, mother. She is the dearest—" He stopped, hesitated for an instant, and slipping his arm around his mother's neck drew her close to him. Then, in a torrent of words—his cheeks against hers—the whole story came out. He was a boy again now; that quality in him that would last all his life. She listened with her eyes on the floor, her heart torn with varying. emotions. She was disturbed, but not alarmed. One phase of the situation stood out clearly in her practical mind—his poverty and the impossibility of any immediate marriage. Before that obstacle could be removed she felt sure his natural vacillation regarding women would save him. He would forget her as he had Sue.

"And you say her brother works in the fields and that her father and mother permitted this girl to leave home and sit night after night with you young men with no other protection than that of a common Irishwoman?" There was a tone of censure now in her voice that roused a slight antagonism in Oliver.

"Why not? What could harm her? There was no other place for her to go where she could learn anything."

Mrs. Horn kept still for a moment, looking on the floor. Oliver sat watching her face.

"And your family, my son," she protested with a certain patient disapproval in her tones. "Do they count for nothing? I, of course, would love anybody you would make your wife, but you have others about you. No man has a right to marry beneath him. Do not be in a hurry over this matter. Come home for your wife when you are ready to marry. Give yourself time to compare this girl, who seems to have fascinated you, with—Sue, for instance, or any of the others you have been brought up with."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders at the mention of Sue's name. He had compared her.

"You would not talk this way, dearie; if you could see her," he replied in a hopeless way as if the futility of making his mother understand was now becoming apparent to him. "She is different from anyone you ever met—she is so strong, so fine— such a woman in all that the word means. Not something you fondle and make love to, remember, but a woman more like a Madonna that you worship, or a Greek goddess that you might fear. As to the family part of it, I am getting tired of it all, mother. What good is Grandfather Horn or anybody else to me? I have got to dig my way out just as they did. Just as dear old Dad is doing. If he succeeds in his work who will help him but himself? There have been times when I used to love to remember him sitting by his reading-lamp or with his violin tucked under his chin, and I was proud to think he was my father. Do you know what sets my blood on fire now? It is when I think of him standing over his forge and blowing his bellows, his hands black with coal. I understand many things, dearie, that I knew nothing about when I left home. You used to tell me yourself that everybody had to work, and you sent me away to do it. I looked upon it then as a degradation. I see it differently now. I have worked with all my might all summer, and I have brought back a whole lot of sketches that the boys like. Now I am going to work again with Mr. Slade. I do not like his work, and I do love mine, but I am going to stick to his all the same. I have got something to work for now," and his face brightened. "I am going to win!"

She did not interrupt him. It was better he should unburden his heart. She was satisfied with his record; if he went wrong she only was to blame. But he was not going wrong; nor was there anything to worry about—not even his art—not so long as he kept his place with Mr. Slade and only took it up as a relaxation from more weighty cares. It was only the girl that caused her a moment's thought.

She saw too, through all his outburst, a certain independence and a fearlessness and a certain fixedness of purpose that sent an exultant thrill through her even when her heart was burdened with the thought of this new danger that threatened him. She had sent him away for the fault of instability, and he had overcome it. Should she not now hold fast, as she had before, and save him the second time from this girl who was beneath him in station and who would drag him down to her level, and so perhaps ruin him?

"We will not talk any more about it to-night, my son," she said, in tender tones, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek—it was through his affections that she controlled him. "You should be tired out with your day's journey and ought to rest. Take my advice—do not ask her to be your wife yet. Think about it a little and see some other women before you make up your mind."

A delicious tremor passed through Oliver. He HAD asked her, and she HAD promised! He remembered just the very day, the hour, the minute. That was the bliss of it all! But this he did not tell his mother. He would not hurt her any further now. Some other day he would tell her; when she could see Madge and judge for herself. No, not to-night, and so with the secret untold he kissed her and led her to her room.

And yet strange to say it was the one only thing in all his life that he had kept from her.

Ah! these mothers! who make lovers of their only sons, dominating their lives! How bitter must be the hours when they realize that another's arms are opening for them!

And these boys—what misgivings come; what doubts. How the old walls, impregnable from childhood, begin to crumble! How little now the dear mother knows—she so wise but a few moons since. How this new love steps in front of the old love and claims every part of the boy as its very own.

Faithful to her promise, Miss Clendenning waited the next morning for Oliver in her little boudoir that opened out of the library. A bright fire blazed and crackled, sending its beams dancing over the room and lighting up the red curtains that hung behind her writing-desk, its top covered with opened letters—her morning's mail: many bore foreign postmarks, and not a few were emblazoned with rampant crests sunk in little dabs of colored wax. She wore a morning gown of soft white flannel belted in at the waist. Covering her head and wound loosely about her throat was a fluff of transparent silk, half- concealing the two nests of little gray and brown knots impaled on hair-pins. These were the chrysalides of those gay butterfly side-curls which framed her sweet face at night and to which she never gave wing until after luncheon, no matter who called. The silk scarf that covered them this morning was in recognition of Oliver's sex.

She had finished her breakfast and was leaning forward in her rocking-chair, her elbows on her knees, her tiny feet resting on the fender. She was watching the fire-fairies at work building up their wonderful palaces of molten gold studded with opals and rubies. The little lady must have been in deep thought, for she did not know Oliver had entered until she felt his arm on her shoulder.

"Ah, you dear fellow. No, not there; sit right here on this cricket by my side. Stop, do not say a word. I have been studying it all out in these coals. I know all about it—it is about the mountain girl, this—what do you call her?"

"Miss Grant."

"Nonsense! What do YOU call her?"

"Madge."

"Ah, that's something like it. And you love her?"

"Yes." (Pianissimo.)

"And she loves you?"

"YES." (Forte.)

"And you have told her so?"

"YES!" (Fortissimo.)

"Whew!" Miss Clendenning caught her breath and gave a little gasp. "Well, upon my word! You don't seem to have lost any time, my young Romeo. What does her father say?"

"He doesn't know anything about it."

"Does anybody except you two babes in the wood?"

"Yes, her mother."

"And yours? You told her last night. I knew you would."

"Not everything; but she is all upset."

"Of course she is. So am I. Now tell me—is she a LADY?"

"She is the dearest, sweetest girl you—"

"Come now, come now, answer me. They are all the dearest and sweetest things in the world. What I want to know is, is she a lady?"

"Yes."

"True now, Ollie—honest?"

"Yes, in every sense of the word. A woman you would love and be proud of the moment you saw her."

Miss Clendenning took his face in her hands and looked down into his eyes. "I believe you. Now what do you want me to do?"

"I want her to come down here so everybody can see her. If I had a sister she could invite her, and it would be all right, and maybe then her mother would let her come."

"And you want me to play the sister and have her come here?"

Oliver's fingers closed tight over Miss Clendenning's hand. "Oh, Midget, if you only would, that would fix everything. Mother would understand then why I love her, and Madge could go back and tell her people about us. Her father is very bitter against everybody at the South. They would feel differently if Madge could stay a week with us."

"Why won't her father bring her?"

"He never leaves home. He would not even take her to the mountains, fifteen miles away. She could never paint as she does if she had relied upon him. Mother and Mr. Grant are both alike in their hatred of art as a fitting profession for anybody, and I tell you that they are both wrong."

Miss Clendenning looked up in surprise. She had never seen the boy take a stand of this kind against one of his mother's opinions. Oliver saw the expression on the little lady's face and kept on, his cheeks flushed and a set look about his eyes.

"Yes, wrong. I have never believed mother could be wrong in anything before, and when she wanted me to give up painting I did so because I thought she knew best. But I know she's not right about Madge, and if she is wrong about her, how do I know she was not wrong about my working with Mr. Crocker?"

Margaret's words that day in the bark slant were now ringing in his ears. He had never forgotten them—"Your mother cannot coddle you up forever."

Miss Clendenning held her peace. She was not astonished at the revolt in the boy's mind. She had seen for months past in his letters that Oliver's individuality was asserting itself. It was the new girl whom he was defending—the woman he loved. This had given him strength. She knew something of what he felt, and she knew what blind obedience had done for her. With a half-smothered sigh, she reached over Oliver's head, dipped a quill pen in her inkstand, and at Oliver's dictation, wrote Margaret's address.

"I will invite her at once," she said.

Long after Oliver had gone Miss Clendenning sat looking into the fire. The palaces of rose and amber that the busy fingers of the fire fairies had built up in the white heat of their enthusiasm were in ruins. The light had gone out. Only gray ashes remained, with here and there a dead cinder.

Miss Clendenning rose from her chair, stood a moment in deep thought, and said, aloud:

"If she loves him, she shall have him. There shall be no more desolate firesides if I can help it."

Early the next morning, she mailed by the first post a letter so dainty in form and so delicate in color that only a turtle-dove should have carried it to Brookfleld Farm, and have dropped it into Margaret's hand. This billet-doux began by inviting Miss Margaret Grant of Brookfield Farm to pass a week with Miss Lavinia Clendenning, of Kennedy Square, she, Miss Lavinia, desiring to know the better one who had so charmed and delighted "our dear Oliver," and ended with "Please say to your good mother, that I am twice your age, and will take as much care of you as if you were my own daughter. I feel assured she will waive all ceremony when she thinks of how warm a greeting awaits you."

Margaret looked at the post-mark, and then at the little oval of violet wax bearing the crest of the Clendennings—granted in the time of Queen Elizabeth for distinguished services to the Throne—and after she had read it to her mother, and had shown the seal to her father, who had put on his glasses, scanned it closely, and tossed it back to her with a dry laugh, and after she had talked it all over with John, who said it was certainly very kind of the woman, and that Oliver's people were evidently "nobs," but, of course, Madge couldn't go, not knowing any of them, Margaret took a sheet of plain white paper from her desk, thanked Miss Clendenning for her kind thought of her, and declined the honor in a firm, round hand. This she closed with a red wafer, and then, with a little bridling of her head and a determined look in her face, she laid the letter on the gate-post, ready for the early stage in the morning.

This missive was duly received by Miss Clendenning, and read at once to Mrs. Horn, who raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in deep thought. After some moments she looked over her glasses at Miss Lavinia and said:

"I must say, Lavinia, I am very greatly astonished. Won't come? She has done perfectly right. I think all the better of her for it. Really, there may be something in the girl after all. Let me look at her handwriting again—writes like a woman of some force. Won't come? What do you think, Lavinia?"

"Merely a question of grandmothers, my dear; she seems to have had one, too," answered the little old maid, with a quizzical smile in her eye, as she folded the letter and slipped it in her pocket.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST HOURS OF A CIVILIZATION



Margaret's decision saddened Oliver's last days at home, and he returned to New York with none of his former buoyancy. Here other troubles began to multiply. Before the autumn was gone, Morton, Slade & Co., unable longer to make headway against the financial difficulties that beset them, went to the wall, involving many of their fellow-merchants. Oliver lost his situation, in consequence, and was forced to support himself during the long dreary winter by making lithographic drawings for Bianchi, at prices that barely paid his board. His loneliness in the garret room became more intense, Fred being much away and the occupants of the other rooms being either strangers to him or so uncongenial that he would not make their acquaintance.

To his own troubles were added other anxieties. The political outlook had become even more gloomy than the financial. The roar of Sumter's guns had reverberated throughout the land, and men of all minds were holding their breath and listening, with ears to the ground, for the sound of the next shot. Even Margaret's letters were full of foreboding. "Father is more bitter against the South than ever," she wrote. "He says if he had ten sons each should shoulder a musket. We must wait, Ollie dear. I can only talk to mother about you. Father won't listen, and I never mention your name before him. Not because it is you, Ollie, but because you represent a class whom he hates. Dear John would listen, but he is still in Boston. Even his fellow-classmen want to fight, he says. I fear all this will hurt my work, and keep me from painting."

These letters of Margaret's, sad as they were, were his greatest and sometimes his only comfort. She knew his ups and downs and they must have no secrets from each other. From his mother, however, he kept all records of his privations during these troublous months. Neither his father nor his dear mother must deprive themselves for his benefit.

During these dreary days he often longed for Kennedy Square and for those whom he loved, but it was not until one warm spring day, when the grass was struggling into life, and the twigs on the scraggy trees in Union Square were growing pink and green with impatient buds and leaves that he had his wish. Then a startling telegram summoned him. It read as follows:

"Father ill. Come at once.

"Mother"

Instinctively Oliver felt in his pockets for his purse. There was just money enough to take him to Kennedy Square and back.

His mother met him at the door.

"It was only a fainting turn, my son," were her first words. "I am sorry I sent for you. Your father is himself again, so Dr. Wallace says. He has been working too hard lately—sometimes far into the night. I could have stopped you from coming; but, somehow, I wanted you—" and she held him close in her arms, and laid her cheek against his. "I get so lonely, my boy, and feel so helpless sometimes."

The weak and strong were changing places. She felt the man in him now.

Nathan was in the library. He and Malachi had been taking turns at Richard's bedside. Malachi had not closed his eyes all night. Nathan came out into the hall when he heard Oliver's voice, and put his hand on his shoulder.

"We had a great scare, Ollie," he said, "but he's all right again, thank God! He's asleep now—better not wake him." Then he put on his coat and went home.

Malachi shook his head. "Sumpin's de matter wid him, an' dis ain't de las' ob it. Drapped jes' like a shote when he's hit, Marse Oliver," he said, in a low whisper, as if afraid of disturbing his master on the floor above. "I was a-layin' out his clo'es an' he called quick like, 'Malachi! Malachi!' an' when I got dar, he was lyin' on de flo' wid his head on de mat. I ain't nebber seen Marse Richard do like dat befo'—" The old servant trembled as he spoke. He evidently did not share Nathan's hopeful views. Neither did Dr. Wallace, although he did not say so to anyone.

Their fears, however, were not realized. Richard not only revived, but by the end of the week be was in the drawing-room again, Malachi, in accordance with the time-honored custom, wheeling out his chair, puffing up the cushions, and, with a wave of the hand and a sweeping bow, saying:

"Yo' ch'ar's all ready, Marse Richard. Hope you'se feelin' fine dis evenin', sah!"

The following day he was in his "li'l' room," Oliver helping him. It was the lifting of the heavy plate of the motor that had hurt Richard, so Nathan told him; not the same motor which Oliver remembered; another, much larger and built on different lines. The inventor now used twenty-four cells instead of ten, and the magnets had been wrapped with finer wire.

These days in the shop were delightful to Oliver. His father no longer treated him as an inexperienced youth, but as his equal. "I hope you will agree with me, my son," he would say; or, "What do you think of the idea of using a 'cam' here instead of a lever?" or, "I wish you would find the last issue of the Review, and tell me what you think of that article of Latrobe's. He puts the case very clearly, it seems to me," etc. And Oliver would bend his head in attention and try to follow his father's lead, wishing all the time that he could really be of use to the man he revered beyond all others, and so lighten some of the burdens that were weighing him down.

And none the less joyful were the hours spent with his mother. All the old-time affection, the devotion of a lover-son, were lavished upon her. And she was so supremely happy in it all. Now that Richard had recovered, there was no other cloud on her horizon, not even that of the dreaded mortgage which owing to some payments made Richard by a company using one of his patents had been extended and its interest paid for two years in advance in deference to her urgent request. All anxiety as to the Northern girl had happily passed out of her mind. If Oliver intended marrying Miss Grant he would have told her, she knew. Then again, he was so much stronger and wiser now—so much more thoughtful than he had been—so much more able to keep his head in matters of this kind.

As his position was different with his father in the "li'l' room" and with his mother in the stillness of her chamber—for often they talked there together until far into the night—so were his relations altered with his old friends and neighbors in the drawing- room. While the young men and girls filled the house as had always been their custom, the older men, as well, now paid their respects to Richard Horn's son.

"One of our own kind," Judge Bowman said to Richard. "Does you credit, Horn—a son to be proud of."

Even Amos Cobb came to look him over, a courtesy which pleased Richard who greatly admired the Vermonter, and who had not hesitated to express his good opinion of him on more than one occasion before his own and Cobb's friends.

"A man of force, gentlemen," Richard had said, of great kindness of heart and with a wide range of vision. One who has the clearest ideas of what makes for the good of his country; a man too, not ashamed of his opinions and with ample courage to defend them. He deserves our unqualified respect, not our criticism."

When Cobb heard of Richard's outspoken defence of him he at once called on the inventor at his workshop —a thing he had not done for mouths, and asked to see the motor, and that same night astonished the circles about the club tables, by remarking, in a tone of voice loud enough for everybody to hear: "We have all been wrong about Horn. He has got hold of something that will one day knock steam higher than Gilderoy's kite." A friendship was thus established between the two which had become closer every day—the friendship of a clearer understanding; one which was unbroken during the rest of their lives.

It was quite natural, therefore, that Amos Cobb should be among Oliver's earliest callers. He must have been pleased with his inspection, for he took occasion at the club to say to Colonel Clayton, in his quick, crisp way:

"Dropped in at Horn's last night. His boy's over from New York. Looks like a different man since he quit fooling round here a couple of years ago. Clean cut a young fellow as I've seen for many a day. Got a look out of his eyes like his mother's. Level- headed woman, his mother—no better anywhere. If all the young bloods South had Oliver Horn's ideas we might pull through this crisis."

To which my Lord Chesterfield of Kennedy Square merely replied only with a nod of the head and a drawing together of the eyebrows. He found it difficult to tolerate the Vermonter in these days with his continued tirades against "The epidemic of insanity sweeping over the South," as Cobb would invariably put it.

The scribe now reaches a night in Oliver's career fraught with such momentous consequences that he would be glad to leave its story untold:

An unforgettable night indeed, both for those who were assembled there, and for him who is the chronicler. He would fain lay down his pen to recall again the charm and the sweetness and the old- time flavor of that drawing-room: the soft lights of the candles; the perfume of the lilacs coming in through the half-open windows; the merry laugh of the joyous girl running through the Square to be ushered by Malachi a moment later into the presence of her hostess, there to make her courtesied obeisance before she joined a group of young people around one of the red damask-covered sofas. And then Richard, dear Richard, with his white hair and his gracious speech, and Miss Clendenning with her manners of foreign courts, and the sweet-voiced hostess of the mansion moving about among her guests; her guests who were her neighbors and her friends; whose children were like her own, and whose joys and sorrows were hers—guests, neighbors, friends many of whom after this fatal night were to be as enemies never to assemble again with the old-time harmony and love.

Malachi had brewed the punch; the little squat glasses were set out beside the Canton china bowl, for it was the night of the weekly musical and an unusually brilliant company had assembled in honor of Oliver's arrival and of Richard's recovery.

The inventor was to play his own interpretations of Handel's Largo, a favorite selection of Ole Bull, and one which the inventor and the great virtuoso had played together some years before.

Miss Clendenning had taken her place at the piano, Nathan standing beside her to turn the leaves of the accompaniment.

Richard had picked up his violin, tucked it under his chin, poised the bow, and that peculiar hush which always precedes the sounding of the first notes on evenings of this kind had already fallen upon the room, when there came a loud rap at the front door that startled everyone and the next instant Colonel Clayton burst in, his cheeks flaming, his hat still on his head.

"Ten thousand Yankees will be here in the morning, Horn!" be gasped, out of breath with his run across the Square, holding one hand to his side as he spoke, and waving an open telegram in the other. "Stop! This is no time for fiddling. They're not going round by water; they're coming here by train. Read that," and he held out the bit of paper.

The Colonel's sudden entrance and the startling character of the news, had brought every man to his feet.

Richard laid down his violin, read the telegram quietly, and handed it back.

"Well, suppose they do come, Clayton?"

His voice was so sustained, and his manner so temperate, that a certain calming reassurance was felt.

"Suppose they DO come! They'll burn the town, I tell you," shouted the infuriated man, suddenly remembering his hat and handing it to Malachi. That's what they're coming for. We want no troops in our streets, and the Government ought to know it. It's an outrage to send armed men here at this time!"

"You're all wrong, Clayton," answered Richard, without raising his voice. "You have always been wrong about this matter. There are two sides to this question. Virginia troops occupied Harper's Ferry yesterday. If the authorities consider that more troops are needed to protect Washington, that's their affair, not yours nor mine."

"We'll MAKE it our affair. What right has this damnable Government to march their troops through a free and sovereign State without its permission! Whom do they think this town belongs to, I want to know, that this Northern scum should foul it. Not a man shall set foot here if I can help it. I would rather—"

Richard turned to stay the torrent of invectives in which such words as "renegades," "traitors," "mud-sills," were heard, but the Colonel, completely unmanned by the rage he was in, and seemingly unconscious of the presence of the ladies, waved him aside with his hand, and faced the row of frightened, expectant faces.

"Gentlemen, when you are through with this tom- foolery, I shall be glad if you will come to the club; any of you who have got guns had better look them up; they'll be wanted before this is over. We'll meet these dirty skinflints with cold lead and plenty of it."

Oliver's face flushed at the Colonel's words, and he was about to speak, when his mother laid her hand on his arm. Visions of the kindly face of Professor Cummings, and the strong well-knit figure of Fred Stone, John Grant, Hank, Jonathan Gordon, and the others whom he loved came before his eyes.

Richard raised his hand in protest:

"You are mad, Clayton; you don't know what you are doing. Stop these troops and our streets will run blood. I beg and beseech you to keep cool. Because South Carolina has lost her head, that is no reason why we should. This is not our fight! If my State called me to defend her against foreign invasion, old as I am I would be ready, and so should you. But the Government is part of ourselves, and should not be looked upon as an enemy. You are wrong, I tell you, Clayton."

"Wrong or right, they'll have to walk over my dead body if they attempt to cross the streets of this town. That's my right as a citizen, and that I shall maintain. Gentlemen, I have called a meeting at the club at ten o'clock to-night. All of you able to carry a gun will do me the kindness to be present. I'd rather die right here in my tracks than let a lot of low-lived mud-sills who never entered a gentleman's house in their lives come down here at the beck and call of this rail-splitter they've put in the White House and walk over us rough-shod! And you, Horn, a Virginian, defend it! By God, sir, it's enough to make a man's blood boil!"

The inventor's eyes flashed. They blazed now as brightly as those of Clayton. Not even a life-long friend had the right to use such language in his presence, or in that of his guests. Richard's figure grew tense with indignation. Confronting the now reckless man, he raised his hand and was about to order him out of the house when Oliver stepped quickly in front of his father.

"You are unjust, Colonel Clayton." The words came slowly between the boy's partly closed teeth. "You know nothing of these people. I have lived among them long enough not only to know but to love them. There are as many gentlemen North as South. If you would go among them as I have done, you would be man enough to admit it."

The Colonel turned upon him with a snarl:

"And so you have become a dirty renegade, have you, and gone back on your blood and your State? That's what comes of sending boys like you away from home!"

The guests stood amazed. The spectacle of the most courteous man of his time acting like a blackguard was more astounding than the news be had brought. Even Malachi, at the open door, trembled with fear.

As the words fell from his lips Mrs. Horn's firm, clear voice, crying "Shame! Shame!" rang through the room. She had risen from her seat and was walking rapidly to where the Colonel was standing.

"Shame, I say, John Clayton! How dare you speak so? What has our young son ever done to you, that you should insult him in his father's house! What madness has come over you?"

The horrified guests looked from one to the other. Every eye was fixed on the Colonel, shaking with rage.

For a brief instant he faced his hostess, started to speak, checked himself as if some better judgment prevailed, and with upraised hands flung himself from the room, shouting, as he went:

"Ten o'clock, gentlemen! Chesapeake Club! Every man with a gun!"

Richard, astounded at Clayton's action and now thoroughly convinced of the danger of the situation and determined to do what he could to thwart the efforts of such men as the Colonel and his following, laid his violin in its case, turned to his frightened guests and with a few calming words and a promise to send each one of them word if any immediate danger existed, called Oliver and Nathan to him, and taking his cloak and hat from Malachi's outstretched trembling hands started for the club. Once outside it was easy to see that a feeling of intense and ominous excitement was in the air. Even on the sidewalk and on the street corners, men stood silent, huddled together, their eyes on the ground, the situation being too grave for spoken words.

On arriving they found its halls already filled with angry and excited men discussing the threatened invasion, many of whom met the young man with scowling looks, the Colonel having evidently informed them of Oliver's protest.

A few of the members had brought their sporting guns. These had been handed to the gouty old porter, who, half-frightened out of his wits, had stacked them in a row against the wall of the outer hall. Billy Talbot arrived a few moments later carrying a heavy fowling-piece loaded for swan. He had been dining out when summoned and had hurriedly left the table, excusing himself on the ground that he had been "called to arms." He had taken time, however, to stop at his own house, slip out of his English dress- suit and into a brown ducking outfit.

"We'll shoot 'em on the run, damn 'em—like rabbits, sir," he said to Cobb as he entered, the Vermonter being the only man likely to communicate with the invaders and so make known the warlike intentions of at least one citizen, and the utter hopelessness of any prolonged resistance. Waggles, who had followed close on his master's heels, was too excited to sit down, but stood on three legs, his eye turned toward Talbot, as if wanting to pick up any game which Billy's trusty fowling-piece might bring down.

A quiet, repressed smile passed, over Oliver's face as he watched Waggles and his master; but he spoke no word to the Nimrod. He could not help thinking how Hank Pollard would handle the fashion-plate if he ever closed his great bony hands upon him.

Judge Bowman now joined the group, bowing to Richard rather coldly and planting himself squarely in front of Oliver.

"There's only one side to this question, young man, for you," he said. "Don't be fooled by those fellow up in New York. I know them—known them for years. Look up there"—and he pointed to the portrait of Oliver's ancestor above the mantel. "What do you think he would do if he were alive to-day! Stick to your own, my boy—stick to your own!"

General Mactavish now hurried in, drawing off his white gloves as he entered the room, followed by Tom Gunning, Carter Thorn, and Mowbray, an up- country man. The four had been dining together and had also left the table on receipt of the Colonel's message. They evidently appreciated the gravity of the situation, for they stood just outside the excited group that filled the centre of the large room, listening eagerly to Richard's clear tones pleading for moderation—"in a crisis which," he urged, "required the greatest public restraint and self-control," and which would surely "plunge the State into the most horrible of wars" if those about him listened to the counsels of such men as Clayton and Judge Bowman.

During the whole discussion Amos Cobb stood silent, leaning against the mantel-piece, his cold gray eyes fixed on the excited throng, his thin lips curling now and then. When the Defence Committee, in spite of Richard's protest, had at last been formed, and its members formally instructed to meet the enemy outside the city and protest, first by voice and then, if necessary, by arms, against the unwarrantable invasion of the soil of their State, the Vermonter buttoned up his coat slowly, one button after another, fastened each one with a determined gesture, drew on his gloves, set his lips tight, singled out Oliver and Richard, shook their hands with the greatest warmth, and walked straight out of the club-house. Some time during the night he drove in a hack to Mr. Stiger's house; roused the old cashier from his sleep; took him and the big walled-town-key down to the bank; unlocked the vault and dragged from it two wooden boxes filled with gold coin, his own property, and which the month before he had deposited there for safe-keeping. These, with Stiger's assistance, he carried to the hack. Within the hour, the two boxes with their contents were locked up in bureau-drawer in his own house awaiting their immediate shipment to New York.

The next morning Malachi's wizened face was thrust inside Oliver's bedroom door. He was shaking with terror, his eyes almost starting from his head.

"Marse Ollie, Marse Ollie, git up quick as you kin! De Yankees is come; de town is black wid 'em!"

Oliver sprang from his bed and stood half-dazed looking into Malachi's eyes.

"How do you know? Who told you?"

"I done seen 'em. Been up since daylight. Dey got guns wid 'em. Fo' Gawd dis is tur-ble!" The old man's voice trembled—he could hardly articulate.

Oliver hurried into his clothes; stepped noiselessly downstairs so as not to wake his father and mother, and, closing the front door softly behind him, stood for a moment on the top step. Should he forget the insults of the night before and go straight to Colonel Clayton, and try to dissuade him from his purpose, or should he find the regiment and warn them of their danger?

A vague sense of personal responsibility for whatever the day might bring forth took possession of him —as though the turning-point in his life had come, without his altogether realizing it. These men from the North were coming to his own town, where he had been born and brought up, and where they should be hospitably received. If Clayton had his way they would be met with clenched hands and perhaps with blows. That these invaders were armed, and that each man carried forty rounds of ammunition and was perfectly able to take care of himself, did not impress him. He only remembered that they were of the same blood as the men who had befriended him, and that they were in great personal danger.

The angry shouts of a crowd of men and boys approaching the Square from a side street, now attracted his attention. They rushed past Oliver without noticing him, and, hurrying on through the gate, crossed the park, in the direction of the railroad station and the docks. One of the mob, lacking a club, stopped long enough to wrench a paling from the rickety fence enclosing the Square, trampling the pretty crocuses and the yellow tulips under foot. Each new arrival, seeing the gap, followed the first man's example, throwing the branches and tendrils to the ground as they worked, until the whole panel was wrecked and the vines were torn from their roots. As they swept by the Clayton house, half a dozen men, led by the Colonel, ran down the steps, and joined the throng.

Oliver, seeing now that all his efforts for peace would be hopeless, ran through the Square close behind the shouting mob, dashed down a side street parallel to that through which the cars carrying the troops were to pass on their way to Washington, turned into an alley, and found himself on the waterfront, opposite one of the dock slips.

These slips were crowded with vessels, their bowsprits, like huge bayonets, thrust out over the, car- tracks, as if to protect the cellars of the opposite warehouses, used by the ship-chandlers for the storage of coarse merchandise, and always left open during the day. The narrow strip of dock-front, between the car-tracks and the water-line—an unpaved strip of foot-trodden earth and rotting planks, on which lay enormous ship-anchors, anchor-chains in coils, piles of squared timber, and other maritime properties, stored here for years—was now a seething mass of people completely hiding the things on which they stood.

Oliver mounted a pile of barrels in front of one of these ship-chandler cellars, and, holding to an awning-post, looked off over the heads of the surging crowd and in the direction of the railroad station at the end of the long street. From his position on the top barrel he could see the white steam of the locomotives rising above the buildings and the line of cars. He could see, too, a yard engine backing and puffing, as if making up a train.

Suddenly, without apparent cause, there rose above the murmurs of the street an ominous sound, like that of a fierce wind soughing through a forest of pines. All eyes were directed down the long street upon a line of cars that had been shunted on the street-track; about these moved a group of men in blue uniforms, the sun flashing on their bayonets and the brass shields of their belts.

Oliver, stirred by the sound, climbed to the top of the awning-post for a better view and clung to the cross-piece. Every man who could gain an inch of vantage, roused to an extra effort by the distinct roar, took equal advantage of his fellows. Sailors sprang farther into the rigging or crawled out to the end of the bowsprits; the windows of the warehouses were thrown up, the clerks and employees standing on the sills, balancing themselves by the shutters; even the skylights were burst open, men and boys crawling out edging their way along the ridge-poles of the roofs or holding to the chimneys. Every inch of standing- room was black with spectators.

The distant roar died away in fitful gusts as suddenly as it had arisen, and a silence even more terrifying fell upon the throng as a body of police poured out of a side street and marched in a compact body toward the cars.

Then came long strings of horses, eight or ten in tandem. These were backed down and hooked to the cars.

The flash of bayonets was now cut off as the troops crowded into the cars; the body of police wheeled and took their places ahead of the horses; the tandems straightened out and the leaders lunged forward under the lash. The advance through the town had begun.

All this time the mob about Oliver stood with hands clenched, jaws tight shut, great lumps in their throats. Their eyes were the eyes of hungry beasts watching an approaching prey.

As the distant rumbling of the cars, drawn by teams of straining horses, sounded the nearer, a bare- headed man, with white hair and mustache and black garments that distinguished him from the mob about him, and whom Oliver instantly recognized as Colonel Clayton, mounted a mass of squared timber lining the track, ran the length of the pile, climbed to the topmost stick, and shouted, in a voice which reverberated throughout the street:

"Block the tracks!"

A torrent of oaths broke loose as the words left his lips, and a rush was made for the pile of timber. Men struggled and fought like demons for the end of the great sticks, carrying them by main strength, crossing them over the rails, heaping them one on the other like a pile of huge jack-straws, a dozen men to a length, the mobs on the house-tops and in the windows cheering like mad. The ends of the heavy chains resting on the strip of dirt were now caught up and hauled along the cobbles to be intertwined with the squared timber; anchors weighing tons were pried up and dragged across the tracks by lines of men urged on by gray-haired old merchants in Quaker-cut dress coats, many of them bare-headed, who had yielded to the sudden unaccountable delirium that had seized upon everyone. Colonel Clayton, Carter Thom, and Mowbray could be seen working side by side with stevedores from the docks and the rabble from the shipyards. John Camblin, a millionnaire and nearly eighty years of age, head of the largest East India house on the wharves, his hat and wig gone, his coat split from the collar to the tails, was tugging at an anchor ten men could not have moved. Staid citizens, men who had not used an oath for years, stood on the sidewalks swearing like street- toughs; others looked out from their office-windows, the tears streaming down their cheeks. A woman with a coarse shawl about her shoulders, her hair hanging loose, a broom in one hand, was haranguing the mob from the top of a tobacco hogshead, her curses filling the air.

Oliver held to his seat on the cross-piece of the awning, his teeth set, his eye fixed on the rapidly advancing cars, his mind wavering between two opinions—loyalty to his home, now invaded by troops whose bayonets might be turned upon his own people, and loyalty to the friends he loved—and to the woman who loved him!

The shouting now became a continuous roar. The front line of policemen, as they neared the obstructions, swung their clubs right and left, beating back the crowd. Then the rumbling cars, drawn by the horses, came to a halt. The barricades must be reckoned with.

Again there came the flashing of steel and the intermingling of blue and white uniforms. The troops were leaving the cars and were forming in line to pass the barricades; the officers marching in front, the compact mass following elbow to elbow, their eyes straight before them, their muskets flat against their shoulders.

The approaching column now deployed sharply, wheeled to the right of the obstruction, and became once more a solid mass, leaving the barricades behind them, the Chief of Police at the head of the line forcing the mob back to the curbstone, laying about him with his club, thumping heads and cracking wrists as he cleared the way.

The colonel of the regiment, his fatigue cap pulled over his eyes, sword in hand, shoulders erect, cape thrown back, was now abreast of the awning to which Oliver clung. Now and then he would glance furtively at the house-tops, as if expecting a missile.

The mob looked on sullenly, awed into submission by the gleaming bayonets. But for the shouts of the police, beating back the crowd, and the muttered curses, one would have thought a parade was in progress.

The first company had now passed—pale, haggard- looking men, their lips twitching, showing little flecks of dried saliva caked in the corners of their mouths, their hands tight about the butts of their muskets.

Oliver looked on with beating heart. The dull, monotonous tramp of their feet strangely affected him.

As the second line of bayonets came abreast of the awning-post, a blacksmith in a red shirt and leather apron, his arms bared to the elbow, sprang from the packed sidewalk into the open space between the troops and the gutter, lifted a paving stone high above his head and hurled it, with all his might, straight against the soldier nearest him. The man reeled, clutched at the comrade next him, and sank to the ground. Then, quick as an echo, a puff of white smoke burst out down the line of troops, and a sharp, ringing report split the air. The first shot of defence had been fired.

The whole column swayed as if breasting a gale.

Another and an answering shot now rang through the street. This came from a window filled with men gesticulating wildly. Instantly the troop. wheeled, raised their muskets, and a line of fire and smoke belched forth.

A terrible fear, that paled men's faces, followed by a moment of ominous silence, seized upon the mob, and then a wild roar burst out from thousands of human throats. The rectangular body of soldiers and the ragged-edged mob merged into a common mass. Men wrenched the guns from the soldiers and beat them down with the butt ends of the muskets. Frenzied policemen hurled themselves into the midst of the disorganized militia, knocking up the ends of their muskets, begging the men to hold their fire. The air was thick with missiles; bricks from the house-tops; sticks of wood and coal from the fireplaces of the offices; iron bolts, castings, anything the crazed mob could find with which to kill their fellow-men. The roar was deafening, drowning the orders of the officers.

Oliver clung to his post, not knowing whether to drop into the seething mass or to run the risk of being shot where he was. Suddenly his eye singled out a soldier who stood at bay below him, swinging his musket, widening the circle about him with every blow. The soldier's movements were hampered by his heavy overcoat and army blanket slung across his shoulder. His face and neck were covered with blood and dirt, disfiguring him beyond recognition.

At the same instant Oliver became conscious that a man in blue overalls was creeping up on the soldier's rear to brain him with a cart-rung that he held in his hand.

A mist swam before the boy's eyes, and a great lump rose in his throat. The cowardice of the attack incensed him; some of the hot blood of the old ancestor that had crossed the flood at Trenton flamed up in his face. With the quickness of a cat he dropped to the sidewalk, darted forward, struck the coward full in the face with his clenched fist, tumbling him to the ground, wrenched the rung from his hands, and, jumping in front of the now almost overpowered soldier, swung the heavy stick about him like a flail, clearing the space before him.

The assaulting crowd wavered, fell back, and then, maddened at Oliver's defence of the invader, with a wild yell of triumph, swept the two young men off their feet, throwing them bodily down the steps of a ship-chandler's shop, the soldier knocked senseless by a blow from a brick which had struck him full in the chest.

Oliver lay still for a moment, raised his head cautiously and, putting forth all his strength, twisted his arms around the stricken man and rolled with him into the cellar. Then, springing to his feet, he slammed the door behind them and slipped in the bolt, before the mob could guess his meaning.

Listening at the crack of the door for a moment and finding they were not pursued, he stood over the limp body, lifted it in his arms, laid it on a pile of sails, and ran to the rear of the cellar for a bucket standing under a grimy window, scarcely visible in the gloom, now that the door was shut.

Under the touch of the cold water, the soldier slowly opened his eyes, straining them toward Oliver, as if in pain.

The two men looked, intently at each other; the soldier passing his hand across his forehead as if trying to clear his brain. Then lifting himself up on his elbow he gasped:

"Horn! Horn! My God!"

Oliver's heart stopped beating.

"Who are you?"

"John Grant."

Oliver saw only Margaret's face!

As though he were working for the woman he loved—doing what she would have done—he knelt beside the wounded man, wiped the blood and grime from his cheeks with his own handkerchief, loosening his coat, rubbing his hands, murmuring "Old fellow," "Dear John ": there was no time for other interchange of speech.

When at last Grant was on his feet the two men barricaded the doors more strongly, rolling heavy barrels against them, the sounds from the street seeming to indicate that an attack might be made upon them. But the mob had swept on and forgotten them, as mobs often do, while the fugitives waited, hardly daring to speak except in detached whispers, lest some one of the inmates of the warehouse overhead might hear them.

Toward noon a low tap was heard at the window, which was level with an alley in the rear, and a man's hand was thrust through a broken pane. Oliver pressed Grant's arm, laid his finger on his lips, caught up a heavy hammer lying on an oil-barrel, crept noiselessly along the wall toward the sound, and stopped to listen. Then he heard his name called in a hoarse whisper.

"Marse Ollie! Marse Ollie! Is you in here?"

"Who is it?" Oliver called back, crouching beneath the window, his fingers tight around the handle of the hammer.

"It's me, Marse Ollie."

"You! Malachi!"

"Yassir, I'se been a-followin' ye all de mawnin'; I see 'em tryin' to kill ye an' I tried to git to ye. I kin git through—yer needn't help me," and he squeezed himself under the raised sash. "Malachi like de snake—crawl through anywheres. An' ye ain't hurted?" he asked when he was inside. "De bressed Lord, ain't dat good! I been a-waitin' outside; I was feared dey'd see me if I tried de door."

"Where are the soldiers?"

"Gone. Ain't nobody outside at all.Mos' to de railroad by dis time, dey tells me. An' dere ain't nary soul 'bout dis place—all run away. Come 'long wid me, son—I ain't gwine ter leabe ye a minute. Marse Richard'll be waitin'. Come 'long home, son. I been a-followin' ye all de mawnin'." The tears were in his eyes now. "An' ye ain't hurted," and he felt him all over with trembling. hands.

John raised himself above the oil-barrels. He had heard the strange talk and was anxiously watching the approaching figures.

"It's all right, Grant—it's our Malachi," Oliver called out in his natural voice, now that there was no danger of being overheard.

The old man stopped and lifted both hands above his head.

"Gor'-a-mighty! an' he ain't dead?" His eyes had now become accustomed to the gloom.

"No; and just think, Mally, he is my own friend. Grant, this is our Malachi whom I told you about."

Grant stepped over the barrel and held out his hand to the old negro. There are no class distinctions where life and death are concerned.

"Glad to see you. Pretty close shave, but I guess I'm all right. They'd have done for me but for your master."

A council of war was now held. The uniform would be fatal if Grant were seen in it on the street. Malachi must crawl into the alley again, go over to Oliver's house, and return at dusk with one of Oliver's suits of clothes; the uniform and the blood- stained shirt could then be hidden in the cellar, and at dark, should the street still be deserted, the three would put on a bold front and walk out of the front door of the main warehouse over their heads. Once safe in the Horn house, they could perfect plans for Grant's rejoining his regiment.

Their immediate safety provided for, and Malachi gone, Oliver could wait no longer to ask about Margaret. He had been turning over in his mind how he had best broach the subject, when her brother solved the difficulty by saying:

"Father was the first man in Brookfleld to indorse the President's call for troops. He'd have come himself, old as he is, if I had not joined the regiment. He didn't like you, Horn; I always told him he was wrong. He'll never forgive himself now when he hears what you have done for me," and he laid his hand affectionately on Oliver's shoulder as he spoke. "I liked you as soon as I saw you, and so did mother, and so does Madge, but father was always wrong about you. We told him so, again and again, and Madge said that father would see some day that you got your politeness from the Cavaliers and we got our plain speaking from the Puritans. The old gentleman was pretty mad about her saying so, I tell you, but she stuck to it. Madge is a dear girl, Horn. A fellow always knows just where to find Madge; no nonsense about her. She's grown handsome, too— handsomer than ever. There's a new look in her face, somehow, lately. I tell her she's met somebody in New York she likes, but she won't acknowledge it."

Oliver drank in every word, drawing out the brother with skilful questions and little exclamatory remarks that filled Grant with enthusiasm and induced him to talk on. They were young men again now—brothers once more, as they had been that first afternoon in the library at Brookfield. In the joy of hearing from her he entirely forgot his surroundings, and the dangers that still beset them both; a joy intensified because it was the first and only time he had heard someone who knew her talk to him of the woman he loved. This went on until night fell and Malachi again crawled in through the same low window and helped John into Oliver's clothes.

When all was ready the main door of the warehouse above was opened carefully and the three men walked out—Malachi ahead, John and Oliver following. The moonlit street was deserted; only the barricades of timber and the litter of stones and bricks marked the events of the morning. Dodging into a side alley and keeping on its shadow side they made their way toward Oliver's home.

When the three reached the Square, the white light of the moon lay full on the bleached columns of the Clayton house. Outside on the porch, resting against the wall, stood a row of long-barrelled guns glinting in the moon's rays. Through the open doorway could be seen the glow of the hall lantern, the hall itself crowded with men. The Horn house was dark, except for a light in Mrs. Horn's bedroom. The old servant's visit had calmed their fears, and they had only to wait now until Oliver's return.

Malachi stationed Oliver and John Grant in the shadow of the big sycamore that overhung the house, mounted the marble steps and knocked twice. Aunt Hannah opened the door. She seemed to be expecting someone, for the knock was instantly followed by the turning of the knob.

Malachi spoke a few words in an undertone to Hannah, and stepped back to where the two young men were standing.

"You go in, Marse Oliver. Leabe de gemman here wid me under de tree. Everybody's got dere eye wide open now—can't fool Malachi—I knows de signs.

Oliver walked leisurely to the door, closed it softly behind him, and ran upstairs into his mother's arms.

Malachi whispered to Grant, and the two disappeared in the shadows. At the same moment a bolt shot back in a gate in the rear of the yard—a gate rarely unbolted. Old Hannah stood behind it shading a candle with her hand. Malachi led the way across the yard, through the green door of Richard's shop, mounted the work-bench, felt carefully along the edge of a trap-door in the ceiling, unhooked a latch, pushed it up with his two hands, the dust sifting down in showers on his head, and disclosed a large, empty loft, once used by the slaves as a sleeping-room, and which had not been opened for years.

Assisted by the negro's arms, Grant climbed to the floor above, where a dim skylight gave him light and air. A cup of hot coffee was then handed up and the door of the trap carefully fastened, Malachi rumpling the shavings on the work-bench to conceal the dust, No trace of the hiding-place of the fugitive was visible.

When Malachi again reached the front hall, it was in response to someone who was hammering at the door as if to break it down. The old man peered cautiously out through the small panes of glass. The sidewalk was crowded with men led by Colonel Clayton, most of them carrying guns. They had marched over from Clayton's house. Among them was a posse of detectives from the Police Department.

In answer to their summons Richard had thrown up the window of his bedroom and was talking to Clayton, whose voice Malachi recognized above the murmurs and threats of the small mob.

"Come down, Horn. Oliver has proved traitor, just as I knew he would. He's been hiding one of these damned Yankees all day. We want that man, I tell you, dead or alive, and we are going to have him."

When the door was flung wide Clayton confronted, not Richard, but Oliver.

"Where's that Yankee?" cried Clayton. He had not expected to see Oliver. "We are in no mood for nonsense—where have you hidden him?"

Malachi stepped forward before Oliver could answer.

"Marse Oliver ain't hid him. If you want him go hunt him!"

"You speak like that to me, you black scoundrel," burst out the Colonel, and he raised his arm as if to strike him.

"Yes—me! Ain't nobody gwine ter tech Marse Oliver while I lib. I's as free as you is, Marse Clayton. Ain't no man can lay a han' on me!"

The Colonel wheeled angrily and gave an order to one of the detectives in a low voice. Oliver stood irresolute. He knew nothing of Grant's whereabouts.

The detective moved from the Colonel's side and pushed his way closer to where Oliver stood.

"There's no use your denying it, young feller; we've heard the whole story from one of our men who saw you jump in front of him. You bring him out or we'll go through the place from cellar to garret."

Oliver gazed straight at the speaker and still held his peace. He was wondering where Grant had hidden himself and what John's chances were if the crowd searched the house. Malachi's outburst had left him in the dark.

Mrs. Horn and Richard, who had followed Oliver and were standing half way down the stairs; looked on in astonishment. Would Clayton dare to break all the rules of good manners, and search the house, she whispered to Richard.

Another of the detectives now stepped forward— a dark, ugly-looking man, with the face of a bulldog.

"Look here! I'll settle this. You and two men crossed the Square ten minutes ago. This nigger one of 'em; where's the other?"

Malachi turned and smiled significantly at Oliver —a smile he knew. It was the smile which the old man's face always wore whenever some tortuous lie of the darky's own concoction had helped his young master out of one of his scrapes.

"I am not here to answer your questions," Oliver replied quietly, a feeling of relief in his heart.

The officer turned quickly and said with an oath to one of the detectives, "Send one man to the alley in the rear, and place another at this door. I'll search the yard and the house. Let no one of the family leave this hall. If that nigger moves put the irons on him."

The men outside made a circle about the house, some of them moving up the alley to watch the rear. Clayton leaned against the jamb of the door. He addressed no word to Richard or Mrs. Horn, nor did be look their way. Oliver stood with folded arms under the eight-sided hall-lantern which an officer had lighted. Now and then he spoke in restrained tones to his mother, who had taken her seat on the stairs, Richard standing beside her. It was not the fate of the soldier that interested her—it was the horror of the search. Richard had not spoken except to direct Malachi to obey the officer's orders. The horror of the search did not affect the inventor—that only violated the sanctity of the home: it was the brute force behind it which appalled him—that might annihilate the Republic.

"It is the beginning of the end," he said to himself.

The tread of heavy feet was again heard coming through the hall. Malachi turned quickly and a subdued smile lighted his wrinkled face.

The two detectives were alone!

"He is not there, Colonel Clayton," said the man with the bull-dog face, slipping his pistol into his hip pocket. "We went through the yard and the out- houses like a fine tooth-comb and made a clean sweep of the cellar. He may have gotten over the wall, but I don't think it. There's a lot of broken bottles on top. I'll try the bedrooms now."

As the words fell from his lips Mrs. Horn rose from her seat on the stairs, straight as a soldier on guard. The light from the lantern illumined her gray hair and threw into strong relief her upraised hand—the first of millions raised in protest against the invasion of the homes of the South. The detective saw the movement and a grim smile came into his face.

"Unless they'll bring him out," he added, slowly. "This young feller knows where he is. Make him tell."

Colonel Clayton turned to Oliver. "Is he upstairs, Oliver?"

"No."

"You give me your word of honor. Oliver, that he is not upstairs?"

"I do."

"Of course he'd say that. Here, I'll know pretty d— quick," muttered the detective moving toward the stairway.

The Colonel stepped forward and barred his way with his arm.

"Stay where you are! You don't know these people. If Oliver says he is not upstairs I believe him. These Horns don't know how to lie. Your information is wrong. The man never entered the house. You must look for the Yankee somewhere else." Waiting until the detectives had left the hall, he raised his hat, and with some show of feeling said:

"I am sorry, Sallie, that we had to upset you so. When you and Richard see this matter in its true light you'll think as I do. If these scoundrels are to be permitted to come here and burn our homes we want to know which side our friends are on."

"You are the judge of your own conduct, John Clayton," she answered, calmly. "This night's work will follow you all your life. Malachi, show Colonel Clayton to the door and close it behind him."

Three nights later Malachi admitted a man he had never seen before. He was short and thick-set and had a grim, firmly set jaw. Under the lapel of his coat was a gold shield. He asked for Mr. Horn, who had lately been living in New York. He would not come inside the drawing-room, but sat in the hall on the hair-cloth sofa, his knees apart, his cap in his hand.

"I'm the Chief of Police," he said to Oliver, without rising from his seat, "and I come because Mr. Cobb sent me. That's between ourselves, remember. You'll have to get out of here at once. They've got a yarn started that you're a government detective sent down here to spot rebel sympathizers and they'll make it warm for you. I've looked into it and I know it ain't so, but this town's in no shape to listen to anything. Besides, a while ago one of my men found your friend's uniform in the cellar where you hid it behind the barrels and the handkerchief all blood, with your name on it; and they've got you dead to rights. That'll all be out in the morning papers and make it worse for you. You needn't worry about HIM. He's all right. Mr. Cobb found him at daylight this morning just where your nigger left him and drove him over to the junction. He's with his regiment by this time. Get your things together quick as you can. I'll wait for you and see you safe aboard the owl train."

Within the hour Oliver had turned his back on his home and all that he loved.



CHAPTER XIX

THE SETTLING OF THE SHADOW



The bruised crocuses never again lifted their heads in Kennedy Square.

With the settling of the shadow—a shadow black with hate—men forgot the perfume of flowers, the rest and cool of shady nooks, the kindling touch of warm hands, and stood apart with eyes askance; women shuddered and grew pale, and sad-faced children peered out through closed blinds.

Within the Square itself, along paths that had once echoed to the tread of slippered feet, armed sentries paced, their sharp challenges breaking the stillness of the night. Outside its wrecked fences strange men in stranger uniforms strode in and out of the joyless houses; tired pickets stacked their arias on the unswept piazzas, and panting horses nibbled the bark from the withered trees; rank weeds choked the gardens; dishevelled vines clung to the porches, and doors that had always swung wide to the gentle tap of loving fingers were opened timidly to the blow of the sword-hilt.

Kennedy Square became a tradition.

Some civilizations die slowly. This one was shattered in a day by a paving-stone in the hands of a thug.



CHAPTER XX

THE STONE MUGS



Frederick Stone, N.A., member of the Stone Mugs, late war correspondent and special artist on the spot, paused before the cheerful blaze of his studio fire, shaking the wet snow from his feet. He had tramped across Washington Square in drifts that were over his shoe-tops, mounted the three flights of steps to his cosey rooms, and was at the moment expressing his views on the weather, in terms more forcible than polite, to our very old friend, Jack Bedford, the famous marine-painter. Bedford, on hearing the sound of Fred's footsteps, had strolled in from his own studio, in the same building, and had thrown himself into a big arm-chair, where he was sitting hunched up, his knees almost touching his chin, his round head covered by a skull-cap that showed above the chair-back.

"Nice weather for ducks, Jack, isn't it? Can't see how anybody can get here to-night," cried Fred, striking the mantel with his wet cap, and scattering the rain-drops over the hearth. "Just passed a Broadway stage stuck in a hole as I came by the New York Hotel. Been there an hour, they told me."

"Shouldn't wonder. Whose night is it, Fred?" asked Jack, stretching out one leg in the direction of the cheery blaze.

"Horn's."

"What's he going to do?"

"Give it up. Ask me an easy one. Said he wanted a thirty by forty. There it is on the easel," and Fred moved a chair out of his way, hung his wet coat and hat on a peg behind the door, and started to clear up a tangle of artillery harness that littered the floor.

"Thirty by forty, eh," grunted Jack, from the depths of his chair. "Thunder and Mars! Is the beggar going to paint a panorama? Thought that canvas was for a new cavalry charge of yours!" He had lowered the other leg now, making a double- barrelled gun of the pair.

"No; it's Horn's. He's going to paint one of the fellows to-night."

"In costume?" Jack's head was now so low in the chair that his eyes could draw a bead along his legs to the fire.

"Yes, as an old Burgomaster, or something with a ruff," and he kicked an army blanket into a corner as he spoke. "There's the ruff hanging on that pair of foils, Waller sent it over." Then his merry eyes fell on Jack's sprawled-out figure, his feet almost in the grate—a favorite attitude of his neighbor's when tired out with the day's work, comfortable perhaps, but especially objectionable at the moment.

"Here—get up, you old stick-in-the-mud. Don't sit there, doubled up like a government mule," he laughed. (The army lingo still showed itself once in a while in Fred's speech.) "Help me get this room ready or I'll whale you with this," and he waved one end of a trace over his head. "If the fellows are coming they'll be here in half an hour. Shove back that easel and bring in that beer—it's outside the door in a box. I'll get out the tobacco and pipes."

Jack stretched both arms above his head, emitted a yawn that could be heard in his room below, and sprang to his feet.

Fred, by this time, had taken down from a closet a tin box of crackers, unwrapped a yellow cheese, and was trimming its raw edges with a palette knife. Then they both moved out a big table from the inner room to the larger one, and, while Jack placed the eatables on its bare top, Fred mounted a chair, and began lighting a circle of gas-jets that hung from the ceiling of the skylight. The war-painter was host to- night, and the task of arranging the rooms for the comfort of his fellow-members consequently devolved upon him.

The refreshments having been made ready, Fred roamed about the rooms straightening the pictures on the walls—an old fad of his when guests of any kind were expected—punching the cushions and Turkish saddle-bags into plumpness, that he had picked up in a flying trip abroad the year the war was over, and stringing them along the divan ready for the backs and legs of the club-members. Next he stripped the piano of a collection of camp sketches that had littered it up for a week, dumped the pile into a closet, and, with a sudden wrench of his arms, whirled the instrument itself close against the wall. Then some fire-arms, saddles, and artillery trappings were hidden away in dark corners, and a lay figure, clothed in fatigue cap and blue overcoat, and which had done duty as "a picket" during the day, was wheeled around with its face to the wall, where it stood guard over Fred's famous picture ofb"The Last Gun at Appomattox." His final touches were bestowed on the grate-fire and the coal-scuttle, both of which were replenished from a big pine box in the hall.

Jack Bedford, meanwhile, had busied himself rolling another table—a long one—under the circle of gas-jets so that the men could see to work the better, and loading it with palettes, china tiles, canvases, etc., to be used by the members of the club in their work of the evening. Last of all and not by any means the least important, Jack, by the aid of a chair, gathered together, on the top shelf of the closet, the unique collection of stone beer-mugs from which the club took its name. These he handed down one by one to Fred, who arranged them in a row on one end of the long table. The mugs were to hold the contents of sundry bottles of beer, now safely stowed away in the lidless, pigeon-holed box, standing in the hall, which Fred unloaded later, placing the bottles on the window-sill outside to cool.

Before they had ended their preparations, the stamping of feet on the stair was heard, the door was thrown back, and the several members of the club began to arrive.

The great Waller came first, brushing the snow from his shaggy coat, looking like a great bear, growling as he rolled in, as was his wont. Close behind him, puffing with the run upstairs, and half-hidden behind Waller's broad shoulders, trotted Simmons, the musician.

Not the tousled, ill-clad Waller, the "Walrus" of former days—no one dared to call the painter by any such names since his picture took the Medaille d'Honneur at Paris—and not the slender, smooth- faced Simmons, who in the old days was content to take his chances of filling a vacancy at Wallack's or the Winter Garden, when some one of the regular orchestra was under the weather; but a sleek, prosperous, rotund Waller, with a bit of red in his button- hole, a wide expanse of shirt-front, and a waxed mustache; and a thoughtful, slightly bald, and well- dressed Simmons, with gold eyeglasses, and his hair worn long in his neck as befitted the leader of an orchestra whose concerts crowded the Academy to the doors.

These two arrivals nodded to Jack and Fred, Waller cursing the weather as he hung up his coat on a peg behind the door (unnecessary formalities of every kind, including the shaking of hands and asking after each other's health, were dispensed with by men who saw each other several times a day at their different haunts), and Simmons, without stopping to take off his wet coat, flung his hat on the divan, crossed the room, and seated himself at the piano.

"Went this way, Waller, didn't it?" said Simmons striking the keys, continuing the conversation the two had evidently had on the stairs. "Never heard Parepa in better voice. She filled every corner of the house. Crug told me he was up in Africa in the back row and never missed a note. Do you remember this?" and the musician's fingers again slipped over the keys, and one of the great singer's trills rippled through the room, to which Waller nodded approvingly, mopping his wet face with his handkerchief as he listened.

The opening and shutting of the door, the stamping of feet, the general imprecations hurled at the climate, and the scattering of wet snow and rain-drops about the entrance became constant. Crug bustled in—a short, thick-set, rosy-cheeked young fellow in a black mackintosh and a white silk muffler—a 'cellist of repute, who had spent two years at the conservatoire, and who had once played for Eugenie at one of her musicales at the Tuileries, a fact he never let you forget. And close behind him came Watson, the landscape-painter, who had had two pictures accepted by the Royal Academy—one of them hung on the line, a great honor for an American; and after them blue-eyed, round-faced Munson, a pupil of Kaulbach, and late from Munich; as well as Harry Stedman, Post, the art-critic, and one or two others.

Each man as he entered divested himself of his wet garments, warmed his hands at the blazing grate- fire, and, reaching over the long table, picked up a clay or corn-cob pipe, stuffing the bowl full of tobacco from a cracked Japanese pot that stood on the mantel. Then striking a match he settled himself into the nearest chair, joining in the general talk or smoking quietly, listening to what was being said about him. Now and then one would walk to the window, raise the sash, uncork a bottle of beer where Fred had placed it, empty its contents into one of the mugs, and resume his seat—mug in one hand, pipe in the other.

Up to this time no work had been done, the courtesies of the club permitting none to begin until the member whose night it was had arrived.

As the half-hour slipped away the men began to grow restless.

"If it's Horn's night why the devil doesn't he come, Fred?" asked Waller, in a querulous tone. Although the great sheep-painter had lost his sobriquet since the old days, he had never parted with his right to growl.

"He'll be here," cried Simmons from his seat by the piano. His fingers were still rippling gently over the keys, although he had stopped once just long enough to strip off his wet overcoat. "I met him at Margaret Grant's this afternoon. She had a little tea."

"There every afternoon, isn't he, Simmons?" asked Munson, who was smoking quietly:

"Shouldn't wonder," came the response between the trills.

"How's that affair coming on?" came a voice out of the tobacco-smoke.

"Same old way," answered someone at the lower end of the table—"still waiting for the spondulix."

"Seen her last picture?" remarked Watson, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "The one she scooped the medal with?"

"Yes. Rouser, isn't it?" called out Waller. "Best thing she has done yet. She's a great woman. Hello! there he is! This is a pretty time for him to put in an appearance!"

The door opened and Oliver walked in, a wet umbrella in one hand, his coat-collar turned up, his mustache beaded with melted snow-drops.

"What's it doing outside, Ollie, raining cats and dogs?" Jack called out.

"No, going to clear up. It's stopped snowing and getting colder. Oh, what a night! I love a storm like this, it sets my blood tingling. Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen, but I couldn't help it. It won't make any difference; I can't begin, anyway. Bianchi won't be here for an hour. Just met him on the street —he's going to bring a guest, he says."

"Who's he going to bring?" shouted Simmons, who had risen from his seat at the piano, and was now sorting out some sheets of music that Fred had just laid on its top.

"He won't tell; says it's a surprise," answered Oliver, slipping off his coat.

"A surprise, is it?" grumbled Waller. "I'll bet it's some greasy foreigner." He had left Simmons's side and was now standing by the mantel, filling a pipe from the bowl. "Bianchi has always got a lot of cranks about him."

Oliver hung his wet coat among the row of garments lining the wall—he had come twice as far as the others—crowded his dripping umbrella into a broken Chinese jar that did duty as a rack, and, catching sight of the canvas, walked toward the easel holding the thirty by forty.

"Where did you get it, Freddie?" he said, putting his arms around the shoulders of his old chum and dragging him toward the easel for a closer inspection of the grain of the canvas.

"Snedecor's"

"Just right, old man. Much obliged," and he felt the grain of the cloth with his thumb. "Got a ruff?" and he glanced about him. "Oh, yes; I see. Thanks."