Through the gray light the stranger turned his face swiftly, bent toward Miles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking "saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."

Across the plain, out of the mist-wreaths, came rushing, scurrying, the handful of Indian braves. Pale light streamed now from the east, filtering over a hushed world. Miles faced across the plain, stood close to the tall stranger whose shape, as the dawn touched it, seemed to rise beyond the boy's slight figure wonderfully large and high. There was a sense of unending power, of alertness, of great, easy movement about him; one might have looked at him, and looking away again, have said that wings were folded about him. But Miles did not see him. His eyes were on the fast-nearing, galloping ponies, each with its load of filthy, cruel savagery. This was his death coming; there was disgust, but not dread in the thought for the boy. In a few minutes he should be fighting hopelessly, fiercely against this froth of a lower world; in a few minutes after that he should be lying here still—for he meant to be killed; he had that planned. They should not take him—a wave of sick repulsion at that thought shook him. Nearer, nearer, right on his track came the riders pell-mell. He could hear their weird, horrible cries; now he could see gleaming through the dimness the huge headdress of the foremost, the white coronet of feathers, almost the stripes of paint on the fierce face.

Suddenly a feeling that he knew well caught him, and he laughed. It was the possession that had held in him in every action which he had so far been in. It lifted his high-strung spirit into an atmosphere where there was no dread and no disgust, only a keen rapture in throwing every atom of soul and body into physical intensity; it was as if he himself were a bright blade, dashing, cutting, killing, a living sword rejoicing to destroy. With the coolness that may go with such a frenzy he felt that his pistols were loose; saw with satisfaction that he and his new ally were placed on the slope to the best advantage, then turned swiftly, eager now for the fight to come, toward the Indian band. As he looked, suddenly in mid-career, pulling in their plunging ponies with a jerk that threw them, snorting, on their haunches, the warriors halted. Miles watched in amazement. The bunch of Indians, not more than a hundred yards away, were staring, arrested, startled, back of him to his right, where the lower ridge of Massacre Mountain stretched far and level over the valley that wound westward beneath it on the road to Fort Rain-and-Thunder. As he gazed, the ponies had swept about and were galloping back as they had come, across the plain.

Before he knew if it might be true, if he were not dreaming this curious thing, the clear voice of his companion spoke in one word again, like the single note of a deep bell. "Look!" he said, and Miles swung about toward the ridge behind, following the pointing finger.

In the gray dawn the hill-top was clad with the still strength of an army. Regiment after regiment, silent, motionless, it stretched back into silver mist, and the mist rolled beyond, above, about it; and through it he saw, as through rifts in broken gauze, lines interminable of soldiers, glitter of steel. Miles, looking, knew.

He never remembered how long he stood gazing, earth and time and self forgotten, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes; but suddenly, with a stab it came to him, that if the hosts of heaven fought his battle it was that he might do his duty, might save Captain Thornton and his men; he turned to speak to the young man who had been with him. There was no one there. Over the bushes the mountain breeze blew damp and cold; they rustled softly under its touch; his horse stared at him mildly; away off at the foot-hills he could see the diminishing dots of the fleeing Indian ponies; as he wheeled again and looked, the hills that had been covered with the glory of heavenly armies, lay hushed and empty. And his friend was gone.



Clatter of steel, jingle of harness, an order ringing out far but clear—Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second he was pulling at his horse's girth, slipping the bit swiftly into its mouth—in a moment more he was off and away to meet them, as a body of cavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had hidden them.

"Captain Thornton's troop?" the officer repeated carelessly. "Why, yes; they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed straight for Black Wolf's war-path. Mighty lucky we found them. How about you—seen any Indians, have you?"

Miles answered slowly: "A party of eight were on my trail; they were riding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour—about half an hour—awhile ago." He spoke vaguely, rather oddly, the officer thought, "Something—stopped them about a hundred yards from the mountain. They turned, and rode away."

"Ah," said the officer. "They saw us down the valley."

"I couldn't see you," said Miles.

The officer smiled. "You're not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides, they were out on the plain and had a farther view behind the ridge." And Miles answered not a word.

General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but twice told the story of that night of forty years ago. But he believes that when his time comes, and he goes to join the majority, he will know again the presence which guarded him through the blackness of it, and among the angel legions he looks to find an angel, a messenger, who was his friend.



THE AIDE-DE-CAMP

Age has a point or two in common with greatness; few willingly achieve it, indeed, but most have it thrust upon them, and some are born old. But there are people who, beginning young, are young forever. One might fancy that the careless fates who shape souls—from cotton-batting, from stone, from wood and dynamite and cheese—once in an aeon catch, by chance, a drop of the fountain of youth, and use it in their business, and the soul so made goes on bubbling and sparkling eternally, and gray dust of years cannot dim it. It might be imagined, in another flight of fancy, that a spark of divine fire from the brazier of the immortals snaps loose once in a century and lodges in somebody, and is a heart—with such a clean and happy flame burns sometimes a heart one knows.

On a January evening, in a room where were books and a blazing hearth, a man with a famous name and a long record told me a story, and through his blunt speech flashed in and out all the time the sparkle of the fire and the ripple of the fountain. Unsuspecting, he betrayed every minute the queer thing that had happened to him—how he had never grown up and his blood had never grown cold. So that the story, as it fell in easy sequence, had a charm which was his and is hard to trap, yet it is too good a story to leave unwritten. A picture goes with it, what I looked at as I listened: a massive head on tremendous shoulders; bright white hair and a black bar of eyebrows, striking and dramatic; underneath, eyes dark and alive, a face deep red-and-brown with out of doors. His voice had a rough command in it, because, I suppose, he had given many orders to men. I tell the tale with this memory for a setting; the firelight, the soldierly presence, the gayety of youth echoing through it.

The fire had been forgotten as we talked, and I turned to see it dull and lifeless. "It hasn't gone out, however," I said, and coughed as I swallowed smoke. "There's no smoke without some fire," I poked the logs together. "That's an old saw; but it's true all the same."

"Old saws always are true," said the General. "If there isn't something in them that people know is so they don't get old—they die young. I believe in the ridden-to-death proverbs—little pitchers with big ears—cats with nine lives—still waters running deep—love at first sight, and the rest. They're true, too." His straight look challenged me to dispute him.

The pine knots caught and blazed up, and I went back comfortably into my chair and laughed at him.

"O General! Come! You don't believe in love at first sight."

I liked to make him talk sentiment. He was no more afraid of it than of anything else, and the warmest sort came out of his handling natural and unashamed.

"I don't? Yes, I do, too," he fired at me. "I know it happens, sometimes."

With that the lines of his face broke into the sunshiniest smile. He threw back his head with sudden boyishness, and chuckled, "I ought to know; I've had experience," he said. His look settled again thoughtfully. "Did I ever tell you that story—the story about the day I rode seventy-five miles? Well, I did that several times—I rode it once to see my wife. But this was the first time, and a good deal happened. It was a history-making day for me all right. That was when I was aide-de-camp to General Stoneman. Have I told you that?"

"No," I said; and "oh, do tell me." I knew already that a fire and a deep chair and one of the General's stories made a good combination.

His manner had a quality uncommon to storytellers; he spoke as if what he told had occurred not in times gone by, but perhaps last week; it was more gossip than history. Probably the sharp, full years had been so short to him that the interval between twenty and seventy was no great matter; things looked as clear and his interest was as lively as a half-century ago. This trick of mind made a narrative of his vivid. With eyes on the fire, with his dominant voice absorbing the crisp sound of the crackling wood, he began to talk.

"It was down in Virginia in—let me see—why, certainly, it was in '63—right away after the battle of Chancellorsville, you know." I kept still and hoped the General thought I knew the date of the battle of Chancellorsville. "I was part of a cavalry command that was sent from the Army of the Potomac under General Stoneman—I was his aide. Well, we did a lot of things—knocked out bridges and railroads, and all that; our object was, you see, to destroy communication between Lee's army and Richmond. We even got into Richmond—we thought every Confederate soldier was with Lee at the front, and we had a scheme to free the prisoners in Libby, and perhaps capture Jefferson Davis—but we counted wrong. The defence was too strong, and our force too small; we had to skedaddle, or we'd have seen Libby in a way we didn't like. We found a negro who could pilot us, and we slipped out through fields and swamps beyond the reach of the enemy. Then the return march began. Let me put that log on."

"No. Talk," I protested; but the General had the wood in his vigorous left hand—where a big scar cut across the back.

"You needn't be so independent," he threw at me. "Now you've got a splinter in your finger—serves you right." I laughed at the savage tone, and his eyes flashed fiercely—and he laughed back.

"What was I talking about—you interrupted. Oh, that march. Well, we'd had a pretty rough time when the march back began. For nine days we hadn't had a real meal—just eaten standing up, whatever we could get cooked—or uncooked. We hadn't changed our clothes, and we'd slept on the ground every night."

"Goodness!" I interjected with amateur vagueness. "What about the horses?"

"Oh, they got it, too," the General said carelessly. "We seldom unsaddled them at all, and when we did it was just to give them a rub-down and saddle again. We'd made one march toward home and halted, late at night, when General Stoneman called for his aide-de-camp. I went to him, rather sleepy, and he told me he'd decided to communicate with his chief and report his success, and that I was to start at daylight and find the Army of the Potomac. I had my pick of ten of the best men and horses from the brigade, and I got off at gray dawn with them, and with the written report in my boot to the commanding general, and verbal orders to find him wherever he might be. Nothing else, except the tools—swords and pistols, and that sort of thing. Oh, yes, there was one thing more. General Ladd, who was a Virginian, had given my chief a letter for his people, thinking we'd get into their country. His family were all on the Confederate side of the fence, while he was a Union officer. That was not uncommon in our civil war. But we didn't get near the Ladd estate, and so Stoneman commissioned me to return the letter to the general with the explanation. Does this bore you?" he stopped suddenly to ask, and his alert eye shot the glance at me like a bullet.

"Stop once more and I'll be likely to cry," I predicted.

"For Heaven's sake don't do that." He reached across and took the poker. "Here's the Rapidan River," he sketched down the rug. "Runs east and west. And this blue diagonal north of it is the Rappahannock. I started south of the Rapidan, to cross it and go north, hoping to find our army victorious and south of the Rappahannock. Which I didn't—but that's farther along. Well, we were off at daylight, ten men and the officer—me. It was a fine spring morning, and the bunch of horsemen made a pretty sight as the sun came up, moving through the greenness—the foliage is well out down there in May. The bits jingled and the saddles creaked under our legs—I remember how it sounded as we started off. We'd had a strenuous week, but we were a strong lot and ready for anything. We were going to get it, too." The General chuckled suddenly, as if something had hit his funny-bone. "I skirted along the south bank of the Rapidan, keeping off the roads most of the time, and out of sight, which was better for our health—we were in Confederate country—and we got to Germania Ford without seeing anybody, or being seen. Said I, 'Here's the place we'll cross.' We'd had breakfast before starting, but we'd been in the saddle three hours since that, and I was thirsty. I could see a house back in the trees as we came to the ford—a beautiful old house—the kind you see a lot of in the South—high white pillars—dignified and aristocratic. It seemed to be quiet and safe, so we trotted up the drive, the eleven of us. The front door was open, and I jumped off my horse and ran up the steps and stood in the doorway. There were four or five people in the hall, and they'd seen us coming and were scared. A nice old lady was lying back in a chair, as pale as ashes, with her hand to her heart, gasping ninety to the second, and two or three negroes stood around her with their eyes rolling. And right in the middle of the place a red-headed girl in a white dress was bending over a grizzled old negro man who was locking a large travelling-bag. As cool as a cucumber that girl was."

The General stopped and considered.

"I wish I could describe the scene the way I saw it—I remember exactly. It was a big, square hall running through from front to back, and the back door was open, and you saw a garden with box hedges, and woods behind it. Stairs went up each side the hall and a balcony ran around the second story, with bedrooms opening off it. There was a high, oval window at the back over the balcony, and the sun poured through.

"The girl finished locking her bag as if she hadn't noticed scum of the earth like us, and then she deliberately picked up a bunch of long white flowers that lay by the bag—lilies, I think you call them—and stood up, and looked right past me, as if she was struck with the landscape, and didn't see me. She was a tall girl, and when she stood straight the light from the back window just hit her hair and shone through the loose part of it—there was a lot, and it was curly. I give you my word that, as she stood there and looked calmly beyond me, in her white dress, with the stalk of flowers over her shoulder, and the sun turning that wonderful red-gold hair into a halo—I give you my word she was a perfect picture of a saint out of a stained-glass window in a church. But she didn't act like one."

The General was seized with sudden, irresistible laughter. He sobered quickly.

"I took one look at the vision, and I knew it was all up with me. Talk about love at first sight—before she ever spoke a word I—well." He pulled up the sentence as if it were a horse. "I snatched off my cap and I said, said I, 'I'm very sorry to disturb you,' just as politely as I knew how, but all the answer she gave me was to glance across at the old lady. Then she went find put her arm around her as she lay back gasping in a great curved chair.

"'Don't be afraid, Aunt Virginia,' she said. 'Nothing shall hurt you. I can manage this man.'

"The way she said 'this man' was about as contemptuous as they make 'em. I guess she was right, too—I guess she could. She turned her head toward me, but did not look at me.

"'Do you want anything here?'" she asked.

"Her voice was the prettiest, softest sound you ever heard—she was mad as a hornet, too." The General's swift chuckle caught him. "'Hyer,' she said it," he repeated. "'Hyer.'" He liked to say it, evidently. "I stood holding my cap in my hand, so tame by this time you could have put me on a perch in a cage, for the pluck of the girl was as fascinating as her looks. I spoke up like a man all the same.

"'I wanted to ask,' said I, 'if I might send my men around to your well for a drink of water. They're thirsty.'

"The way she answered, looking all around me and never once at me, made me uncomfortable. 'I suppose you can if you wish,' she said. 'You're stronger than we are. You can take what you choose. But I won't give you anything—not if you were dying—not a glass of water.'

"Well, in spite of her having played football with my heart, that made me angry.

"'I didn't know before that to be Southern made a woman unwomanly,' I said. 'Where I came from I don't believe there's a girl would say a cruel thing like that or refuse a drink of cold water to soldiers doing their duty, friends or enemies. We've slept on the ground nine nights and ridden nine days, and had very little to eat—my men are tired and thirsty. I shan't make them go without any refreshment they can get, even if it is grudged.'

"I gave an order over my shoulder, and my party went off to the back of the house. Then I made a low bow to the old lady and to Miss High-and-Mighty, and I swung about and walked down the steps and mounted my horse. I was parched for water, but I wouldn't have had it if I'd choked, after that. Between taking an almighty shine to the girl and getting stirred up that way, and then being all frozen over with icicles by her cool insultingness, I was pretty savage, and I stared away from the place and thought the men would never come. All of a sudden I felt something touch my arm, and I looked around quick, and there was the girl. She stood by the horse, her red hair close to my elbow as I sat in the saddle, and she held up a glass of water. I never was so astonished in my life.

"'You're thirsty and tired, too,' she said, speaking as low as if she was afraid the horse might hear. 'For my self-respect—for Southern women'—she brought it out in that soft, sliding way, but the words were all mixed up with embarrassment—and red—my, but she blushed! Then she went on. 'You were right,' said she. 'I was cruel; you're my enemy and I hate you, but I ought not to grudge you water. Take it.'

"I put my hand right on top of hers as she held the glass, and bent down and drank so, making her hold it to my lips, and my hand over hers—bless her heart!"

The General came to a full stop. He was smiling into the fire, and his face was as if a flame burned back of it. I waited very quietly, fearing to change the current by a word, and in a moment the strong voice, with its vibrating note, not to be described, began again.

"I drained every drop," he said, "I'd have drunk a hogshead. When I finished I raised my head and looked down at her without a word said—but I didn't let go of the glass with her hand holding it inside mine—and she lifted her eyes very slowly, and for the first time looked at me. Well—" he shut his lips a moment—"these things don't tell well, but something happened. I held her eyes into mine, us if I gripped them with my muscles, and there came over her face an extraordinary expression—first as if she was surprised that it was me, then as if she was glad, and then—well, you may believe it or not, but I knew that second that the girl—loved me. She hated me all right five minutes before—I was her people's enemy—the chances were she'd never see me again—all that's true, but it simply didn't count. She cared for me, and I for her, and we both knew it—that's all there was about it. People live faster in war-time, I think—anyhow, that's the way it was.

"The men and horses came pouring around the house, and I let her hand loose—it was hard to do it, too—and then she was gone, and we rode on to the ford. We stopped when we got to the stream to let the horses have their turn at drinking, and as I sat loafing in the saddle, with my mind pretty full of what had just passed, my eyes were all over. Every cavalry officer, and especially an aide-de-camp, gets to be a sort of hawk in active service—nothing can move within range that he doesn't see. So as I looked about me I took in among other things the house we'd just left, and suddenly I spied a handkerchief waving from behind one of the big white pillars. Of course you've got to be wary in an enemy's country, and these people were rabid Confederates, as I'd occasion to know. All the same it would have been bad judgment to neglect such a signal, and what's more, I'd have staked my life on that girl's honesty. If the handkerchief had been a cannon I'd have gone back. So back I went, taking a couple of men with me. As I jumped off my horse I saw her standing inside the front door, back in the shadow, and I ran up the steps to her.

"'Well?' said I.

"She looked up at me and laughed, showing a row of white teeth. That was the first time I ever saw her laugh. 'I knew you'd come back,' said she, as mischievous as a child, and her eyes danced.

"I didn't mean to be made a fool of, for I had my duty to think about, so I spoke rather shortly. 'Well, and now I'm here—what?'

"With that she drew an excited little gasp. 'I couldn't let you be killed,' she brought out in a sort of breathless whisper, so low I had to bend over close to hear her. 'You mustn't go on—in that direction—you'll be taken. The Union army's been defeated—at Chancellorsville. They're driven north of the Rappahannock—to Falmouth. Our troops are in their old camps. There's an outpost across the ford—just over the hill.'

"It was the first I'd heard of the defeat at Chancellorsville, and it stunned me for a second. 'Are you telling me the truth?' I asked her pretty sharply.

"'You know I am,' she said, as haughty as you please all of a sudden, and drew herself up with her head in the air.

"And I did know it. Something else struck me just about then. The old lady and the servants were gone from the hall. There wasn't anybody in it but herself and me; my men were out of sight on the driveway. I forgot our army and the war and everything else, and I caught her bands in between mine, and said I, 'Why couldn't you let me be killed?'"

At his words I drew a quick breath, too. For a moment I was the Southern girl with the red-gold hair. I could feel the clasp of the young officer's hands; I could hear his voice asking the rough, tender question, "Why couldn't you let me be killed?"

"It was mighty still for a minute. Then she lifted up her eyes as I held her fingers in a vise, and gave me a steady look. That was all—but it was plenty.

"I don't know how I got on my horse or what order I gave, but my head was clear enough for business purposes, and I had to use it—quickly, too. There were thick woods near by, and I hurried my party into them and gave men and horses a short rest till I could decide what to do. The Confederates were east of us, around Chancellorsville and in the triangle between the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, so that It was unsafe travelling in that direction. It's the business of an aide-de-camp carrying despatches to steal as quietly as possible through an enemy's country, and the one fatal thing is to be captured. So I concluded I wouldn't get into the thick of it till I had to, but would turn west and make a detour, crossing by Morton's Ford, farther up the Rapidan. Germania Ford lies in a deep loop of the river, and that made our ride longer, but we found a road and crossed all right as I planned it, and then we doubled back, as we had to, eastward.

"It was a pretty ride in the May weather, through that beautiful Virginia country. We kept in the woods and the lonely roads as much as we could and hardly saw a soul for hours, and though I knew we were getting into dangerous parts again, I hoped we might work through all right. Of course I thought first about my errand, and my mind was on every turn of the road and every speck in the landscape, but all the same there was one corner of it—or of something—that didn't forget that red-headed girl—not an instant. I kept wondering if I'd ever see her again, and I was mighty clear that I would, if there was enough left of me by the time I could get off duty to go and look her up. The touch of her hands stayed with me all day.

"About two o'clock or so we passed a house, just a cabin, but a neat sort of place, and I looked at it as I did at everything, and saw an old negro with grizzled hair standing some distance in front of it. Now everything reminded me of that girl because she was on my mind, and instantly I was struck with the idea, that the old fellow looked like the servant who had been locking the bag in the house by Germania Ford. I wasn't sure it was the same darky, but I thought I'd see. There was a patch of woods back of the house, and I ordered the party to wait there till I joined them, and I threw my bridle to a soldier and turned in at the gate. The man loped out for the house, but I halted him. Then I went along past the negro to the cabin, and opened the door, which had been shut tight.

"There was a table littered with papers in the middle of the room, and behind it, in a gray riding-habit, with a gray soldier-cap on her red hair, writing for dear life, sat the girl. She lifted her head quick, as the door swung open, and then made a jump to get between me and the table. I took off my cap, and said I:

"'I'm very glad to see you. I was just wondering if we'd ever meet again.' She only stared at me. Then I said: 'I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you for those papers.' I knew by the look of them that they were some sort of despatches.

"At that she laughed in a kind of a friendly, cocksure way. She wasn't afraid of anything, that girl. 'No,' she threw at me—just like that—'No.'" The General tossed back his big head and did a poor imitation of a girl's light tone—a poor imitation, but the way he did it was winning. "'No,' said she, shaking her head sidewise. 'You can't have those papers—not ever,' and with that she swept them together and popped them into a drawer of the table and then hopped up on the table and sat there laughing at me, with her little riding-hoots swinging. 'At least, unless you knock me down, and I don't believe you'll do that,' said she.

"Well, I had to have those papers. I didn't know how important they might be, but if this girl was sending information to the Southern commanders I was inclined to think it would be accurate and worth while. It wouldn't do not to capture it. At the same time I wouldn't have laid a finger on her, to compel her, for a million dollars. I stood and stared like a blockhead for a minute, at my wit's end, and she sat there and smiled. All of a sudden I had an idea. I caught the end of the table and tipped it up, and off slid the young lady, and I snatched at the knob of the drawer, and had the papers in a second.

"It was simple, but it worked. Then it was her turn to look foolish. Of course she had a temper, with that colored hair, and she was raging. She looked at me as if she'd like to tear me to pieces. There wasn't anything she could say, however, and not lose her dignity, and I guess she pretty nearly exploded for a minute, and then, in a flash, the joke of it struck her. Her eyes began to dance, and she laughed because she couldn't help it, and I with her. For a whole minute we forgot what a big business we were both after, and acted like two children.

"'That's right,' said I finally. 'I had to get them, but I did it in the kindest spirit. I see you understand that.'

"'Oh, I don't care,' she answered with her chin up—a little way she had. 'They're not much, anyway. I hadn't got to the important part.'

"'Won't you finish?' said I politely, and pretended to offer her the papers—and then I got serious. 'What are you doing here?' I asked her. 'Where are you going?'

"She looked up at me, and—I knew she liked me. She caught her breath before she answered. 'What right have you got to ask me questions?' said she, making a bluff at righteous indignation.

"But I just gripped her fingers into mine—it was getting to be a habit, holding her hand.

"'And what are you doing here?' she went on saucily, but her voice was a whisper, and she let her hand lie.

"'I'll tell you what I'm doing,' said I. 'I'm obeying the Bible. My Bible tells me to love my enemies, and I'm going to. I do,' said I. 'What does your Bible tell you?'

"'My Bible tells me to resist the devil and he will flee from me,' she answered back like a flash, standing up straight and looking at me squarely, as solemn as a church.

"'Well, I guess I'm not that kind of a devil,' said I. 'I don't want to flee worth a cent.'

"And at that she broke into a laugh and showed all her little teeth at me. That was one of the prettiest things about her, the row of small white teeth she showed every time she laughed.

"'Just at that second the old negro stuck his head in at the door. 'We're busy, uncle,' said I. 'I'll give you five dollars for five minutes.'

"But the girl put her hand on my arm to stop me, 'What is it, Uncle Ebenezer?' she asked him anxiously.

"'It's young Marse, Miss Lindy,' the man said, 'Him'n Marse Philip Breck'nridge 'n' Marse Tom's ridin' down de branch right now. Close to hyer—dey'll be hyer in fo'-five minutes.'

"She nodded at him coolly. 'All right. Shut the door, Uncle Ebenezer,' said she, and he went out and shut it.

"And before I could say Jack Robinson she was dragging me into the next room, and pushing me out of a door at the back.

"'Go—hurry up—oh, go!' she begged. 'I won't let them take you.'

"Well, I didn't like to leave her suddenly like that, so I said, said I: 'What's the hurry? I want to tell you something.'

"'No,' she shot at me. 'You can't. Go—won't you, please go?' Then I picked up a little hand and hold it against my coat. I knew by now just how she would catch her breath when I did it."

At about this point the General forgot me. Such good comrades we were that my presence did not trouble him, but as for telling the story to me, that was past—he was living it over, to himself alone, with every nerve in action.

"'Look here,' said I, 'I don't believe a thing like this ever happened on the globe before, but this has. It's so—I love you, and I believe you love me, and I'm not going till you tell me so.'

"By that time she was in a fit. 'They'll be here in two minutes; they're Confederate officers. Oh, and you mustn't cross at Kelly's Ford—take the ford above it'—and she thumped me excitedly with the hand I held. I laughed, and she burst out again: 'They'll take you—oh, please go!'

"'Tell me, then,' said I, and she stopped half a second, and gasped again, and looked up in my eyes and said it. 'I love you,' said she. And she meant it.

"'Give me a kiss,' said I, and I leaned close to her, but she pulled away.

"'Oh, no—oh, please go now,' she begged.

"'All right,' said I, 'but you don't know what you're missing,' and I slid out of the back door at the second the Southerners came in at the front.

"There were bushes back there, and I crawled behind them and looked through into the window, and what do you suppose I saw? I saw the biggest and best-looking man of the three walk up to the girl who'd just told me she loved me, and I saw her put up her face and give him the kiss she wouldn't give me. Well, I went smashing down to the woods, making such a rumpus that if those officers had been half awake they'd have been after me twice over. I was so maddened at the sight of that kiss that I didn't realize what I was doing or that I was endangering the lives of my men. 'Of course,' said I to myself, 'it's her brother or her cousin,' but I knew it was a hundred to one that it wasn't, and I was in a mighty bad temper.

"I got my men away from the neighborhood quietly, and we rode pretty cautiously all that afternoon, I knew the road leading to Kelly's Ford, and I bore to the north, away from there, for I trusted the girl and believed I'd be safe if I followed her orders. She'd saved my life twice that day, so I had reason to trust her. But all the time as I jogged along I was wondering about that man, and wondering what the dickens she was up to, anyway, and why she was travelling in the same direction that I was, and where she was going—and over and over I wondered if I'd over see her again. I felt sure I would, though—I couldn't imagine not seeing her, after what she'd said. I didn't even know her name, except that the old negro had called her 'Miss Lindy.' I said that a lot of times to myself as I rode, with the men's bits jingling at my buck and their horses' hoofs thud-thudding. 'Lindy—Miss Lindy—Linda—my Linda—I said it half aloud. It kept first-rate time to the hoof-beats—'Lindy—Miss Lindy.'

"I wondered, too, why she wouldn't let me cross the Rappahannock by Kelly's Ford, for I had reason to think there'd be a Union post on the east side of the river there, but there was a sense of brains and capability about the girl, as well as charm—in fact, that's likely to be a large part of any real charm—and so I trusted to her.



"Well, late in the afternoon we were trotting along, feeling pretty secure. I'd left the Kelly's Ford road at the last turn, and was beginning to think that we ought to be within a few miles of the river, when all of a sudden, coming out of some woods into a small clearing with a farmhouse about the centre of it, we rode on a strong outpost of the enemy, infantry and cavalry both. We were in the open before I saw them, so there was nothing to do but make a dash for it and rush past the cabin before they could reach their arms, and we drew our revolvers and put the spurs in deep and flew past with a fire that settled some of them. But a surprise of this sort doesn't last long, and it was only a few minutes before they were after us—and with fresh mounts. Then it was a horse-race for the river, and I wasn't certain of the roads. However, I knew a trick or two about this business, and I was sure some of the pursuers would forge ahead; so three times I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone. I dismounted several that way. This relieved the strain enough so that I got within sight of the river with all my men. It was a quarter of a mile away when I saw it, and at that point the road split, and which branch led to the ford for the life of me I didn't know. There wasn't time for meditation, however, so I shot down the turn to the left, on the gamble, and sure enough there was the ford—only it wasn't any ford. The Rappahannock was full to the banks and perhaps two hundred yards across. The Confederates were within rifle-shot, so there were exactly two things to do—surrender or swim. I gave my men the choice—to follow me or be captured—and I plunged in, without any of them."

"What!" I demanded here, puzzled. "Didn't the men know how to swim?"

"Oh, yes, they knew how," the General answered, and looked embarrassed.

"Well, then, why didn't they?" It began to dawn on me, "Were they afraid—was it dangerous—was the river swift?"

"Yes," he acknowledged. "The river was swift—it was a foaming torrent."

"They were afraid—all ten of them—and you weren't—you alone?" The General looked annoyed. "I didn't want to be captured," he explained crossly. "I had the despatches besides." He went on: "I slipped off my horse, keeping hold of the bridle to guide him, and swam low beside him, because they were firing from the bank. But all at once the shots stopped, and I heard shouting, and shortly after I got a glimpse, over my horse's back, of a rider in the water near me, and there was a flash of a gray cap. One of the Southerners was swimming after me, and I was due for a tussle when we landed. I made it first. I scrambled to shore and snatched out my sword—the pistols were wet—and rushed for the other man as he jumped to the bank, and just as I got to him—just in time—I saw him. It wasn't him—it was her—the girl. Heavens!" gasped the General; "she gave me a start that time. I dropped my sword on the ground, I was so surprised, and stared at her with my mouth open.

"'Oo-ee!' said that girl, shaking her skirt, as calm as a May morning. 'Oo-ee!' like a baby crowing. 'My, but that's a cold river!' And her teeth chattered.

"Well, that time I didn't ask permission. I took her in my arms and held her—I had to, to keep her warm. Couldn't let her stand there and click her teeth—could I? And she didn't fight me. 'What did you do such a crazy thing for?' asked I.

"'Well, you're mighty par-particular,' said she as saucy as you please, but still shivering so she couldn't talk straight. 'They were popping g-guns at you—that's what for. Roger's a right bad shot, but he might have hit you.'

"'And he might, have hit you,' said I. 'Did you happen to think of that?'

"She just laughed. 'Oh, no—they wouldn't risk hitting me. I'm too valuable—that's why I jumped in—to protect you.'

"'Oh!' said I. 'I'm a delicate flower, it seems. You've been protecting me all day. Who's Roger?'

"'My brother,' said she, smiling up at me.

"'Was that the man you kissed in the cabin back yonder?'

"'Shame!' said she. 'You peeped.'

"'Was it?' I insisted, for I wanted to know. And she told me.

"'Yes,' she told me, in that low voice of hers that was hard to hear, only it paid to listen.

"'Did you ever kiss any other man?' said I.

"'It's none of your business,' said the girl. 'But I didn't—the way you mean.'

"'Well, it wouldn't make any difference, anyway—nothing would,' I said. 'Except this—are you ever going to?'

"All this time that bright-colored head of hers was on my shoulder, Confederate cap and all, and I was afraid of my life to stir, for fear she'd take it away. But when I said that I put my face down against hers and repeated the question, 'Are you ever going to?'

"It seemed like ages before she answered and I was scared—yet she didn't pull away,—and finally the words came—low, but I heard. 'One,' said she. 'If he wants it.'

"Then—" the General stopped suddenly, and the splendid claret and honey color of his cheeks went a dark shade more to claret. He had come to from his trance, and remembered me. "I don't know why I'm telling you all these details," he declared abruptly. "I suppose you're tired to death listening." His alert eyes questioned me.

"General," I begged, "don't stop like that again. Don't leave out a syllable. 'Then—'"

But he threw back his head boyishly and laughed with a touch of self-consciousness. "No, madam, I won't tell you about 'then.' I'll leave so much to your imagination. I guess you're equal to it. It wasn't a second anyway before she gave a jump that took her six feet from me, and there she was tugging at the girth of her saddle.

"'Quick—change the saddles!' she ordered me. 'I must be out of my mind to throw away time when your life's in danger. They're coming around by the bridge,' she explained, 'two miles down. And you have to have a fresh mount. They'd catch you on that.' She threw a contemptuous glance at my tired brute, and began unbuckling the wet straps with her little wet fingers.

"'Don't do that,' said I. 'Let me.' But she pushed me away. 'Mustn't waste time.' She gave her orders as business-like as an officer. 'Do your own saddle while I attend to this. Zero can run right away from anything they're riding—from anything at all. Can't you, Zero?' and she gave the horse a quick pat in between unbuckling. He was a powerful, rangy bay, and not winded by his run and his swim. 'He's my father's,' she went on. 'He'll carry you through to General Hooker's camp at Falmouth—he knows that camp. It's twenty-five miles yet, and you've ridden fifty to-day, poor boy.'

"I wish I could tell you how pretty her voice was when she said things like that, as if she cared that I'd had a strenuous day and was a little tired.

"'How do you know I'm going to Falmouth? How do you know how far I've ridden?' I asked her, astonished again.

"'I'm a witch,' she said. 'I find out everything about you-all by magic, and then I tell our officers. They know it's so if I tell them. Ask Stonewall Jackson how he discovered the road to take his cavalry around for the attack on Howard. I reckon I helped a lot at Chancellorsville.'

"'Do you reckon you're helping now?' I asked, throwing my saddle over Zero's back. 'Strikes me you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy hand over fist.'

"That girl surprised me whatever she did, and the reason was—I figured it out afterward—that she let herself be what few people let themselves be—absolutely straightforward. She had the gentlest ways, but she always hit straight from the shoulder, and that's likely to surprise people. This time she took three steps to where I stood by Zero and caught my finger in the middle of pulling up the cinch and held to it.

"'I'm not a traitor,' she threw at me. 'I'm loyal to my people, and you're my enemy—and I'm saving you from them. But it's you—it's you,' she whispered, looking up at me. It was getting dark by now, but I could see her eyes. 'When you put your hand over mine this morning it was like somebody'd telegraphed that the one man was coming; and then I looked at you, and I knew he'd got there. I've never bothered about men—mostly they're not worth while, when there are horses—but ever since I've been grown I've known that you'd come some time, and that I'd know you when you came. Do you think I'm going to let you be taken—shot, maybe? Not much—I'll guard your life with every breath of mine—and I'll keep it safe, too.'

"Now, wasn't that a strange way for a girl to talk? Did you ever hear of another woman who could talk that way, and live up to it?" he demanded of me unexpectedly.

I was afraid to say the wrong thing and I spoke timidly. "What did you do then?"

He gave me a glance smouldering with mischief. "I didn't do it. I tried to, but she wouldn't let me.

"'Hurry, hurry,' said she, in a panic all of a sudden. 'They'll be coming. Zero's fast, but you ought to get a good start.'

"And she hustled me on the horse. And just as I was off, as I bent from the saddle to catch her hand for the last time, she gave me two more shocks together." Silent reminiscent laughter shook him.

"'When am I going to see you again?' asked I hopelessly, for I felt as if everything was mighty uncertain, and I couldn't bear to leave her.

"'To-morrow,' said she, prompt as taxes. 'To-morrow. Good-by, Captain Carruthers.'

"And she gave the horse a slap that scared him into a leap, and off I went galloping into darkness, with my brain in a whirl as to where I could see her to-morrow, and how under creation she knew my name. The cold bath had refreshed me—I hadn't had the like of it for nine days—and I galloped on for a while feeling fine, and thinking mighty hard about the girl I'd left behind me. Twenty-four hours before I'd never seen her, yet I felt, as if I had known her all my life. I was sure of this, that in all my days I'd never seen anybody like her, and never would. And that's true to this minute. I'd had sweethearts a-plenty—in a way—but the affair of that day was the only time I was ever in love in my life."

To tell the truth I had been a little scandalized all through this story, for I knew well enough that there was a Mrs. Carruthers. I had not met her—she had been South through the months which her husband had spent in New York—but the General's strong language concerning the red-haired girl made me sympathize with his wife, and this last sentiment was staggering. Poor Mrs. Carruthers! thought I—poor, staid lady, with this gay lad of a husband declaring his heart forever buried with the adventure of a day of long ago. Yet, a soldier boy of twenty-three—the romance of war-time—the glamour of lost love—there were certainly alleviating circumstances. At all events, it was not my affair—I could enjoy the story as it came with a clear conscience. So I smiled at the wicked General—who looked as innocent as a baby—and he went on.

"I knew every road on that side the river, and I knew the Confederates wouldn't dare chase me but a few miles, as it wasn't their country any longer, so pretty soon I began to take things easy. I thought over everything that had happened through the day, everything she'd said and done, every look—I could remember it all. I can now. I wondered who under heaven she was, and I kicked myself that I hadn't asked her name. 'Lindy'—that's all I knew, and I guess I said that over a hundred times. I wondered why she'd told me not to go to Kelly's Ford, but I worked that out the right way—as I found later—that her party expected to cross there, and she didn't want me to encounter them; and then the river was too full and they tried a higher ford. And I'd run into them. Yet I couldn't understand why she planned to cross at Kelly's, anyway, because there was pretty sure to be a Union outpost on the east bank there, and she'd have landed right among them. That puzzled me. Who was the girl, and why on earth was she travelling in that direction, and where could she be going? I went over that problem again and again, and couldn't find an answer.

"Meanwhile it was getting late, and the bracing effect of the cold water of the Rappahannock was wearing off, and I began to feel the fatigue of an exciting day and a seventy-five-mile ride—on top of nine other days with little to eat and not much rest. My wet clothes chilled me, and the last few miles I have never been able to remember distinctly—I think I was misty in my mind. At any rate, when I got to headquarters camp I was just about clear enough to guide Zero through the maze of tents, and not any more, and when the horse stopped with his nose against the front pole of the general's fly I was unconscious."

I exclaimed, horrified: "It was too much for human nature! You must have been nearly dead. Did you fall off? Were you hurt?"

"Oh, no—I was all right," he said cheerfully. "I just sat there. But an equestrian statue in front of the general's tent at 11 P.M. wasn't usual, and there was a small sensation. It brought out the adjutant-general and he recognized me, and they carried me into a tent, and got a surgeon, and he had me stripped and rubbed and rolled in blankets. They found the despatches in my boots, and those gave all the information necessary. They found the letter, too, which Stoneman had given me to hand back to General Ladd, and they didn't understand that, as it was addressed simply to 'Miss Ladd, Ford Hall,' so they left it till I waked up. That wasn't till noon the next day."

The General began chuckling contagiously, and I was alive with curiosity to know the coming joke.

"I believe every officer in the camp, from the commanding general down, had sent me clothes. When I unclosed my eyes that tent was alive with them. It was a spring opening, I can tell you—all sorts. Well, when I got the meaning of the array, I lay there and laughed out loud, and an orderly appeared at that, and then the adjutant-general, and I reported to him. Then I got into an assortment of the clothes, and did my duty by a pile of food and drink, and I was ready to start back to join my chief. Except for the letter of General Ladd—I had to deliver that in person to give the explanation. General Ladd had been wounded, I found, at Chancellorsville, but would see me. So off I went to his tent, and the orderly showed me in at once. He was in bed with his arm and shoulder bandaged, and by his side, looking as fresh as a rose and as mischievous as a monkey, sat a girl with red hair—Linda Ladd—Miss Ladd, of Ford Hall—the old house where I first saw her. Her father presented me in due form and told me to give her the letter and—that's all."

The General stopped short and regarded me quietly.

"Oh, but—" I stammered. "But that isn't all—why, I don't understand—it's criminal not to tell the rest—there's a lot."

"What do you want to hear?" he demanded, "I don't know any more—that's all that happened."

"Don't be brutal," I pleaded. "I want to know, for one thing, how she knew your name."

"Oh—that." He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. You remember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter and shot the horses from under some of the Southerners."

"I remember."

"Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'd been my classmate at the Point, and he recognized me. He ran back and told them to make every effort to capture the party, as its leader was Captain Carruthers, of Stoneman's staff, and undoubtedly carried despatches."

"Oh!" I said. "I see. And where was Miss Ladd going, travelling your way all day?"

"To see her wounded father at Falmouth, don't you understand? She'd had word from him the day before. She was escorted by a strong party of Confederates, including her brother and cousin. She started out with just the old negro, and it was arranged that she should meet the party at the cabin where I found her writing. They were to go with her to Kelly's Ford, where she was to pass over to the Union post on the other bank—she had a safe-conduct."

"Oh!" I assimilated this. "And she and her brother were Confederates, and the father was a Northern general—how extraordinary!"

"Not in the least," the General corrected me. "It happened so in a number of cases. She was a power in that campaign. She did more work than either father or brother. A Southern officer told me afterward that the men half believed what she said—that she was a witch, and got news of our movements by magic. Nothing escaped her—she had a wonderful mind, and did not know what fear was. A wonderful woman!"

He was smiling to himself again as he sat, with his great shoulders bent forward and his scarred hand on his knee, looking into the fire.

"General," I said tentatively, "aren't you going to tell me what she said when she saw you come into her father's tent?"

"Said?" asked the General, looking up and frowning. "What could she say? Good-morning, I guess."

I wasn't afraid of his frown or of his hammer-and-tongs manner. I'd got behind both before now. I persisted.

"But I mean—what did you say to each other, like the day before—how did it all come out?"

"Oh, we couldn't do any love-making, if that's what you mean," he explained in a business-like way, "because the old man was on deck. And I had to leave in about ten minutes to ride back to join my command. That was all there was to it."

I sighed with disappointment. Of course I knew it was just an idyll of youth, a day long, and that the book was closed forty years before. But I could not bear to have it closed with a bang. Somewhere in the narrative had come to me the impression that the heroine of it had died young in those exciting war-times of long ago. I had a picture in my mind of the dancing eyes closed meekly in a last sleep; of the young officer's hand laid sorrowing on the bright halo of hair.

"Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked softly.

The General turned on me a quick, queer look. Fun was in it, and memory gave it gentleness; yet there was impatience, too, at my slowness, in the boyish brown eyes.

"Mrs. Carruthers has red hair," he said briefly.



THROUGH THE IVORY GATE

Breeze-filtered through shifting leafage, the June morning sunlight came in at the open window by the boy's bed, under the green shades, across the shadowy, white room, and danced a noiseless dance of youth and freshness and springtime against the wall opposite. The boy's head stirred on his pillow. He spoke a quick word from out of his dream. "The key?" he said inquiringly, and the sound of his own voice awoke him. Dark, drowsy eyes opened, and he stared half seeing, at the picture that hung facing him. Was it the play of mischievous sunlight, was it the dream that still held his brain? He knew the picture line by line, and there was no such figure in it. It was a large photograph of Fairfield, the Southern home of his mother's people, and the boy remembered it always hanging there, opposite his bed, the first sight to meet his eyes every morning since his babyhood. So he was certain there was no figure in it, more than all one so remarkable as this strapping little chap in his queer clothes; his dress of conspicuous plaid with large black velvet squares sewed on it, who stood now in front of the old manor-house. Could it be only a dream? Could it be that a little ghost, wandering childlike in dim, heavenly fields, had joined the gay troop of his boyish visions and shipped in with them through the ivory gate of pleasant dreams? The boy put his fists to his eyes and rubbed them and looked again. The little fellow was still there, standing with sturdy legs wide apart as if owning the scene; he laughed as he held toward the boy a key—a small key tied with a scarlet ribbon. There was no doubt in the boy's mind that the key was for him, and out of the dim world of sleep he stretched his young arm for it; to reach it he sat up in bed. Then he was awake and knew himself alone in the peace of his own little room, and laughed shamefacedly at the reality of the vision which had followed him from dreamland into the very boundaries of consciousness, which held him even now with gentle tenacity, which drew him back through the day, from his studies, from his play, into the strong current of its fascination.

The first time Philip Beckwith had this dream he was only twelve years old, and, withheld by the deep reserve of childhood, he told not even his mother about it, though he lived in its atmosphere all day and remembered it vividly days longer. A year after it came again; and again it was a June morning, and as his eyes opened the little boy came once more out of the picture toward him, laughing and holding out the key on its scarlet string. The dream was a pleasant one, and Philip welcomed it eagerly from his sleep as a friend. There seemed something sweet and familiar in the child's presence beyond the one memory of him, as again the boy, with eyes half open to every-day life, saw him standing, small but masterful, in the garden of that old house where the Fairfields had lived for more than a century. Half consciously he tried to prolong the vision, tried not to wake entirely for fear of losing it; but the picture faded surely from the curtain of his mind as the tangible world painted there its heavier outlines. It was as if a happy little spirit had tried to follow him, for love of him, from a country lying close, yet separated; it was as if the common childhood of the two made it almost possible for them to meet; as if a message that might not be spoken, were yet almost delivered.

The third time the dream came it was a December morning of the year when Philip was fifteen, and falling snow made wavering light and shadow on the wall where hung the picture. This time, with eyes wide open, yet with the possession of the dream strongly on him, he lay sub-consciously alert and gazed, as in the odd, unmistakable dress that Philip knew now in detail, the bright-faced child swung toward him, always from the garden of that old place, always trying with loving, merry efforts to reach Philip from out of it—always holding to him the red-ribboned key. Like a wary hunter the big boy lay—knowing it unreal, yet living it keenly—and watched his chance. As the little figure glided close to him he put out his hand suddenly, swiftly for the key—he was awake. As always, the dream was gone; the little ghost was baffled again; the two worlds might not meet.

That day Mrs. Beckwith, putting in order an old mahogany secretary, showed him a drawer full of photographs, daguerrotypes. The boy and his gay young mother were the best of friends, for, only nineteen when he was born, she had never let the distance widen between them; had held the freshness of her youth sacred against the time when he should share it. Year by year, living in his enthusiasms, drawing him to hers, she had grown young in his childhood, which year by year came closer to her maturity. Until now there was between the tall, athletic lad and the still young and attractive woman, an equal friendship, a common youth, which gave charm and elasticity to the natural tie between them. Yet even to this comrade-mother the boy had not told his dream, for the difficulty of putting into words the atmosphere, the compelling power of it. So that when she opened one of the old-fashioned black cases which held the early sun-pictures, and showed him the portrait within, he startled her by a sudden exclamation. From the frame of red velvet and tarnished gilt there laughed up at him the little boy of his dream. There was no mistaking him, and if there were doubt about the face, there was the peculiar dress—the black and white plaid with large squares of black velvet sewed here and there as decoration. Philip stared in astonishment at the sturdy figure, the childish face with its wide forehead and level, strong brows; its dark eyes straight-gazing and smiling.

"Mother—who is he? Who is he?" he demanded.

"Why, my lamb, don't you know? It's your little uncle Philip—my brother, for whom you were named—Philip Fairfield the sixth. There was always a Philip Fairfield at Fairfield since 1790. This one was the last, poor baby! and he died when he was five. Unless you go back there some day—that's my hope, but it's not likely to come true. You are a Yankee, except for the big half of you that's me. That's Southern, every inch." She laughed and kissed his fresh cheek impulsively. "But what made you so excited over this picture, Phil?"

Philip gazed down, serious, a little embarrassed, at the open case in his hand. "Mother," he said after a moment, "you'll laugh at me, but I've seen this chap in a dream three times now."

"Oh!" She did laugh at him. "Oh, Philip! What have you been eating for dinner, I'd like to know? I can't have you seeing visions of your ancestors at fifteen—it's unhealthy."

The boy, reddening, insisted. "But, mother, really, don't you think it was queer? I saw him as plainly as I do now—and I've never seen this picture before."

"Oh, yes, you have—you must have seen it," his mother threw back lightly. "You've forgotten, but the image of it was tucked away in some dark corner of your mind, and when you were asleep it stole out and played tricks on you. That's the way forgotten ideas do: they get even with you in dreams for having forgotten them."

"Mother, only listen—" But Mrs. Beckwith, her eyes lighting with a swift turn of thought, interrupted him—laid her finger on his lips.

"No—you listen, boy dear—quick, before I forget it! I've never told you about this, and it's very interesting."

And the youngster, used to these wilful ways of his sister-mother, laughed and put his fair head against her shoulder and listened.

"It's quite a romance," she began, "only there isn't any end to it; it's all unfinished and disappointing. It's about this little Philip here, whose name you have—my brother. He died when he was five, as I said, but even then he had a bit of dramatic history in his life. He was born just before war-time in 1859, and he was a beautiful and wonderful baby; I can remember all about it, for I was six years older. He was incarnate sunshine, the happiest child that ever lived, but far too quick and clever for his years. The servants used to ask him, 'Who is you, Marse Philip, sah?' to hear him answer, before he could speak it plainly, 'I'm Philip Fairfield of Fairfield'; he seemed to realize that, and his responsibility to them and to the place, as soon as he could breathe. He wouldn't have a darky scolded in his presence, and every morning my father put him in front of him in the saddle, and they rode together about the plantation. My father adored him, and little Philip's sunshiny way of taking possession of the slaves and the property pleased him more deeply, I think, than anything in his life. But the war came before this time, when the child was about a year old, and my father went off, of course, as every Southern man went who could walk, and for a year we did not see him. Then he was badly wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill; and came home to get well. However, it was more serious than he knew, and he did not get well. Twice he went off again to join our army, and each time he was sent back within a month, too ill to be of any use. He chafed constantly, of course, because he must stay at home and farm, when his whole soul ached to be fighting for his flag; but finally in December, 1863, he thought he was well enough at last for service. He was to join General John Morgan, who had just made his wonderful escape from prison at Columbus, and it was planned that my mother should take little Philip and me to England to live there till the war was over and we could all be together at Fairfield again. With that in view my father drew all of his ready money—it was ten thousand dollars in gold—from the banks in Lexington, for my mother's use in the years they might be separated. When suddenly, the day before he was to have gone, the old wound broke out again, and he was helplessly ill in bed at the hour when he should have been on his horse riding toward Tennessee. We were fifteen miles out from Lexington, yet it might be rumored that father had drawn a large sum of money, and, of course, he was well known as a Southern officer. Because of the Northern soldiers, who held the city, he feared very much to have the money in the house, yet he hoped still to join Morgan a little later, and then it would be needed as he had planned. Christmas morning my father was so much better that my mother went to church, taking me, and leaving little Philip, then four years old, to amuse him. What happened that morning was the point of all this rambling; so now listen hard, my precious thing."

The boy, sitting erect now, caught his mother's hand silently, and his eyes stared into hers as he drunk in every word:

"Mammy, who was, of course, little Philip's nurse, told my mother afterward that she was sent away before my father and the boy went into the garden, but she saw them go and saw that my father had a tin box—a box about twelve inches long, which seemed very heavy—in his arms, and on his finger swung a long red ribbon with a little key strung on it. Mother knew it as the key of the box, and she had tied the ribbon on it herself.

"It was a bright, crisp Christmas day, pleasant in the garden—the box hedges were green and fragrant, aromatic in the sunshine. You don't even know the smell of box in sunshine, you poor child! But I remember that day, for I was ten years old, a right big girl, and it was a beautiful morning for an invalid to take the air. Mammy said she was proud to see how her 'handsome boy' kept step with his father, and she watched the two until they got away down by the rose-garden, and then she couldn't see little Philip behind the three-foot hedge, so she turned away. But somewhere in that big garden, or under the trees beside it, my father buried the box that held the money—ten thousand dollars. It shows how he trusted that baby, that he took him with him, and you'll see how his trust was only too well justified. For that evening, Christmas night, very suddenly my father died—before he had time to tell my mother where he had hidden the box. He tried; when consciousness came a few minutes before the end he gasped out, 'I buried the money'—and then he choked. Once again he whispered just two words: 'Philip knows.' And my mother said, 'Yes, dearest—Philip and I will find it—don't worry, dearest,' and that quieted him. She told me about it so many times.

"After the funeral she took little Philip and explained to him as well as she could that he must tell mother where he and father had put the box, and—this is the point of it all, Philip—he wouldn't tell. She went over and over it all, again and again, but it was no use. He had given his word to my father never to tell, and he was too much of a baby to understand how death had dissolved that promise. My mother tried every way, of course, explanations and reasoning first, then pleading, and finally severity; she even punished the poor little martyr, for it was awfully important to us all. But the four-year-old baby was absolutely incorruptible, he cried bitterly and sobbed out:

"'Farver said I mustn't never tell anybody—never! Farver said Philip Fairfield of Fairfield mustn't never bweak his words,' and that was all.

"Nothing could induce him to give the least hint. Of course there was great search for it, but it was well hidden and it was never found. Finally, mother took her obdurate son and me and came to New York with us, and we lived on the little income which she had of her own. Her hope was that as soon as Philip was old enough she could make him understand, and go back with him and get that large sum lying underground—lying there yet, perhaps. But in less than a year the little boy was dead and the secret was gone with him."

Philip Beckwith's eyes were intense and wide. The Fairfield eyes, brown and brilliant, their young fire was concentrated on his mother's face.

"Do you mean that money is buried down there, yet, mother?" he asked solemnly.

Mrs. Beckwith caught at the big fellow's sleeve with slim fingers. "Don't go to-day, Phil—wait till after lunch, anyway!"

"Please don't make fun, mother—I want to know about it. Think of it lying there in the ground!"

"Greedy boy! We don't need money now, Phil. And the old place will be yours when I am dead—" The lad's arm went about his mother's shoulders. "Oh, but I'm not going to die for ages! Not till I'm a toothless old person with side curls, hobbling along on a stick. Like this!"—she sprang to her feet and the boy laughed a great peal at the hag-like effect as his young mother threw herself into the part. She dropped on the divan again at his side.

"What I meant to tell you was that your father thinks it very unlikely that the money is there yet, and almost impossible that we could find it in any case. But some day when the place is yours you can have it put through a sieve if you choose. I wish I could think you would ever live there, Phil; but I can't imagine any chance by which you should. I should hate to have you sell it—it has belonged to a Philip Fairfield so many years."

A week later the boy left his childhood by the side of his mother's grave. His history for the next seven years may go in a few lines. School days, vacations, the four years at college, outwardly the commonplace of an even and prosperous development, inwardly the infinite variety of experience by which each soul is a person; the result of the two so wholesome a product of young manhood that no one realized under the frank and open manner a deep reticence, an intensity, a sensitiveness to impressions, a tendency toward mysticism which made the fibre of his being as delicate as it was strong.

Suddenly, in a turn of the wheel, all the externals of his life changed. His rich father died penniless and he found himself on his own hands, and within a month the boy who had owned five polo ponies was a hard-working reporter on a great daily. The same quick-wittedness and energy which had made him a good polo player made him a good reporter. Promotion came fast and, as those who are busiest have most time to spare, he fell to writing stories. When the editor of a large magazine took one, Philip first lost respect for that dignified person, then felt ashamed to have imposed on him, then rejoiced utterly over the check. After that editors fell into the habit; the people he ran against knew about his books; the checks grew better reading all the time; a point came where it was more profitable to stay at home and imagine events than to go out and report them. He had been too busy as the days marched, to generalize, but suddenly he knew that he was a successful writer; that if he kept his head and worked, a future was before him. So he soberly put his own English by the side of that of a master or two from his book-shelves, to keep his perspective clear, and then he worked harder. And it came to be five years after his father's death.

At the end of those years three things happened at once. The young man suddenly was very tired and knew that he needed the vacation he had gone without; a check came in large enough to make a vacation easy—and he had his old dream. His fagged brain had found it but another worry to decide where he should go to rest, but the dream settled the vexed question off-hand—he would go to Kentucky. The very thought of it brought rest to him, for like a memory of childhood, like a bit of his own soul, he knew the country—the "God's Country" of its people—which he had never seen. He caught his breath as he thought of warm, sweet air that held no hurry or nerve strain; of lingering sunny days whose hours are longer than in other places; of the soft speech, the serene and kindly ways of the people; of the royal welcome waiting for him as for every one, heartfelt and heart-warming; he knew it all from a daughter of Kentucky—his mother. It was May now, and he remembered she had told him that the land was filled with roses at the end of May—he would go then. He owned the old place, Fairfield, and he had never seen it. Perhaps it had fallen to pieces; perhaps his mother had painted it in colors too bright; but it was his, the bit of the earth that belonged to him. The Anglo-Saxon joy of land-owning stirred for the first time within him—he would go to his own place. Buoyant with the new thought he sat down and wrote a letter. A cousin of the family, of a younger branch, a certain John Fairfield, lived yet upon the land. Not in the great house, for that had been closed many years, but in a small house almost as old, called Westerly. Philip had corresponded with him once or twice about affairs of the estate, and each letter of the older man's had brought a simple and urgent invitation to come South and visit him. So, pleased as a child with the plan, he wrote that he was coming on a certain Thursday, late in May. The letter sent, he went about in a dream of the South, and when its answer, delighted and hospitable, came simultaneously with one of those bleak and windy turns of weather which make New York, even in May, a marvellously fitting place to leave, he could not wait. Almost a week ahead of his time he packed his bag and took the Southwestern Limited, and on a bright Sunday morning he awoke in the old Phoenix Hotel in Lexington. He had arrived too late the night before to make the fifteen miles to Fairfield, but he had looked over the horses in the livery-stable and chosen the one he wanted, for he meant to go on horseback, as a Southern gentleman should, to his domain. That he meant to go alone, that no one, not even John Fairfield, knew of his coming, was not the least of his satisfactions, for the sight of the place of his forefathers, so long neglected, was becoming suddenly a sacred thing to him. The old house and its young owner should meet each other like sweethearts, with no eyes to watch their greeting, their slow and sweet acquainting; with no living voices to drown the sound of the ghostly voices that must greet his home-coming from those walls—voices of his people who had lived there, voices gone long since into eternal silence.

A little crowd of loungers stared with frank admiration at the young fellow who came out smiling from the door of the Phoenix Hotel, big and handsome in his riding clothes, his eyes taking in the details of girths and bits and straps with the keenness of a horseman.

Philip laughed as he swung into the saddle and looked down at the friendly faces, most of them black faces, below, "Good-by," he said. "Wish me good luck, won't you?" and a willing chorus of "Good luck, boss," came flying after him as the horse's hoofs clattered down the street.

Through the bright drowsiness of the little city he rode in the early Sunday morning, and his heart sang for joy to feel himself again across a horse, and for the love of the place that warmed him already. The sun shone hotly, but he liked it; he felt his whole being slipping into place, fitting to its environment; surely, in spite of birth and breeding, he was Southern born and bred, for this felt like home more than any home he had known!

As he drew away from the city, every little while, through stately woodlands, a dignified sturdy mansion peeped down its long vista of trees at the passing cavalier, and, enchanted with its beautiful setting, with its air of proud unconsciousness, he hoped each time that Fairfield would look like that. If he might live here—and go to New York, to be sure, two or three times a year to keep the edge of his brain sharpened—but if he might live his life as these people lived, in this unhurried atmosphere, in this perfect climate, with the best things in his reach for every-day use; with horses and dogs, with out-of-doors and a great, lovely country to breathe in; with—he smiled vaguely—with sometime perhaps a wife who loved it as he did—he would ask from earth no better life than that. He could write, he felt certain, better and larger things in such surroundings.

But he pulled himself up sharply as he thought how idle a day-dream it was. As a fact, he was a struggling young author, he had come South for two weeks' vacation, and on the first morning he was planning to live here—he must be light-headed. With a touch of his heel and a word and a quick pull on the curb, his good horse broke into a canter, and then, under the loosened rein, into a rousing gallop, and Philip went dashing down the country road, past the soft, rolling landscape, and under cool caves of foliage, vivid with emerald greens of May, thoughts and dreams all dissolved in exhilaration of the glorious movement, the nearest thing to flying that the wingless animal, man, may achieve.

He opened his coat as the blood rushed faster through him, and a paper fluttered from his pocket. He caught it, and as he pulled the horse to a trot, he saw that it was his cousin's letter. So, walking now along the brown shadows and golden sunlight of the long white pike, he fell to wondering about the family he was going to visit. He opened the folded letter and read:

"My dear Cousin," it said—the kinship was the first thought in John Fairfield's mind—"I received your welcome letter on the 14th. I am delighted that you are coming at last to Kentucky, and I consider that it is high time you paid Fairfield, which has been the cradle of your stock for many generations, the compliment of looking at it. We closed our house in Lexington three weeks ago, and are settled out here now for the summer, and find it lovelier than ever. My family consists only of myself and Shelby, my one child, who is now twenty-two years of age. We are both ready to give you an old-time Kentucky welcome, and Westerly is ready to receive you at any moment you wish to come."

The rest was merely arrangement for meeting the traveller, all of which was done away with by his earlier arrival.

"A prim old party, with an exalted idea of the family," commented Philip mentally. "Well-to-do, apparently, or he wouldn't be having a winter house in the city. I wonder what the boy Shelby is like. At twenty-two he should be doing something more profitable than spending an entire summer out here, I should say."

The questions faded into the general content of his mind at the glimpse of another stately old pillared homestead, white and deep down its avenue of locusts. At length he stopped his horse to wait for a ragged negro trudging cheerfully down the road.

"Do you know a place around here called Fairfield?" he asked.

"Yessah. I does that, sah. It's that ar' place right hyeh, sah, by yo' hoss. That ar's Fahfiel'. Shall I open the gate fo' you, boss?" and Philip turned to see a hingeless ruin of boards held together by the persuasion of rusty wire.

"The home of my fathers looks down in the mouth," he reflected aloud.

The old negro's eyes, gleaming from under shaggy sheds of eyebrows, watched him, and he caught the words.

"Is you a Fahfiel', boss?" he asked eagerly. "Is you my young Marse?" He jumped at the conclusion promptly. "You favors de fam'ly mightily, sah. I heard you was comin'"; the rag of a hat went off and he bowed low. "Hit's cert'nly good news fo' Fahfiel', Marse Philip, hit's mighty good news fo' us niggers, sah. I'se b'longed to the Fahfiel' fam'ly a hund'ed years, Marse—me and my folks, and I wishes yo' a welcome home, sah—welcome home, Marse Philip."

Philip bent with a quick movement from his horse, and gripped the twisted old black hand, speechless. This humble welcome on the highway caught at his heart deep down, and the appeal of the colored people to Southerners, who know them, the thrilling appeal of a gentle, loyal race, doomed to live forever behind a veil and hopeless without bitterness, stirred for the first time his manhood. It touched him to be taken for granted as the child of his people; it pleased him that he should be "Marse Philip" as a matter of course, because there had always been a Marse Philip at the place. It was bred deeper in the bone of him than he knew, to understand the soul of the black man; the stuff he was made of had been Southern two hundred years.

The old man went off down the white limestone road singing to himself, and Philip rode slowly under the locusts and beeches up the long drive, grass-grown and lost in places, that wound through the woodland three-quarters of a mile to his house. And as he moved through the park, through sunlight and shadow of these great trees that were his, he felt like a knight of King Arthur, like some young knight long exiled, at last coming to his own. He longed with an unreasonable seizure of desire to come here to live, to take care of it, beautify it, fill it with life and prosperity as it had once been filled, surround it with cheerful faces of colored people whom he might make happy and comfortable. If only he had money to pay off the mortgage, to put the place once in order, it would be the ideal setting for the life that seemed marked out for him—the life of a writer.

The horse turned a corner and broke into a canter up the slope, and as the shoulder of the hill fell away there stood before him the picture of his childhood come to life, smiling drowsily in the morning sunlight with shuttered windows that were its sleeping eyes—the great white house of Fairfield. Its high pillars reached to the roof; its big wings stretched away at either side; the flicker of the shadow of the leaves played over it tenderly and hid broken bits of woodwork, patches of paint cracked away, window-panes gone here and there. It stood as if too proud to apologize or to look sad for such small matters, as serene, as stately as in its prime. And its master, looking at it for the first time, loved it.

He rode around to the side and tied his mount to an old horse-rack, and then walked up the wide front steps as if each lift were an event. He turned the handle of the big door without much hope that it would yield, but it opened willingly, and he stood inside. A broom lay in a corner, windows were open—his cousin had been making ready for him. There was the huge mahogany sofa, horse-hair-covered, in the window under the stairs, where his mother had read "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman." Philip stepped softly across the wide hall and laid his head where must have rested the brown hair of the little girl who had come to be, first all of his life, and then its dearest memory. Half an hour he spent in the old house, and its walls echoed to his footsteps as if in ready homage, and each empty room whose door he opened met him with a sweet half familiarity. The whole place was filled with the presence of the child who had loved it and left it, and for whom this tall man, her child, longed now as if for a little sister who should be here, and whom he missed. With her memory came the thought of the five-year-old uncle who had made history for the family so disastrously. He must see the garden where that other Philip had gone with his father to hide the money on the fated Christmas morning. He closed the house door behind him carefully, as if he would not disturb a little girl reading in the window, a little boy sleeping perhaps in the nursery above. Then he walked down the broad sweep of the driveway, the gravel crunching under the grass, and across what had been a bit of velvet lawn, and stood for a moment with his hand on a broken vase, weed-filled, which capped the stone post of a gateway.

All the garden was misty with memories. Where a tall golden flower nodded alone, from out of the tangled thicket of an old flower-bed, a bright-haired child might have laughed with just that air of startled, gay naughtiness, from the forbidden centre of the blossoms. In the moulded tan-bark of the path was a vague print, like the ghost of a footprint that had passed down the way a lifetime ago. The box, half dead, half sprouted into high unkept growth, still stood stiffly against the riotous overflow of weeds as if it yet held loyally to its business of guarding the borders, Philip shifted his gaze slowly, lingering over the dim contours, the shadowy shape of what the garden had been. Suddenly his eyes opened wide. How was this? There was a hedge as neat, as clipped, as any of Southampton in mid-season, and over it a glory of roses, red and white and pink and yellow, waved gay banners to him in trim luxuriance. He swung toward them, and the breeze brought him for the first time in his life the fragrance of box in sunshine.

Four feet tall, shaven and thick and shining, the old hedge stood, and the garnered sweetness of a hundred years' slow growth breathed delicately from it toward the great-great-grandson of the man who planted it. A box hedge takes as long in the making as a gentleman, and when they are done the two are much of a sort. No plant in all the garden has so subtle an air of breeding, so gentle a reserve, yet so gracious a message of sweetness for all of the world who will stop to learn it. It keeps a firm dignity under the stress of tempest when lighter growths are tossed and torn; it shines bright through the snow; it has a well-bred willingness to be background, with the well-bred gift of presence, whether as background or foreground. The soul of the box-tree is an aristocrat, and the sap that runs through it is the blue blood of vegetation.

Saluting him bravely in the hot sunshine with its myriad shining sword-points, the old hedge sent out to Philip on the May breeze its ancient welcome of aromatic fragrance, and the tall roses crowded gayly to look over its edge at the new master. Slowly, a little dazed at this oasis of shining order in the neglected garden, he walked to the opening and stepped inside the hedge. The rose garden! The famous rose garden of Fairfield, and as his mother had described it, in full splendor of cared-for, orderly bloom. Across the paths he stepped swiftly till he stood amid the roses, giant bushes of Jacqueminot and Marechal Niel; of pink and white and red and yellow blooms in thick array. The glory of them intoxicated him. That he should own all of this beauty seemed too good to be true, and instantly he wanted to taste his ownership. The thought came to him that he would enter into his heritage with strong hands here in the rose garden; he caught a deep-red Jacqueminot almost roughly by its gorgeous head and broke off the stem. He would gather a bunch, a huge, unreasonable bunch of his own flowers. Hungrily he broke one after another; his shoulders bent over them, he was deep in the bushes.

"I reckon I shall have to ask you not to pick any more of those roses," a voice said.

Philip threw up his head as if he had been shot; he turned sharply with a great thrill, for he thought his mother spoke to him. Perhaps it was only the Southern inflection so long unheard, perhaps the sunlight that shone in his eyes dazzled him, but, as he stared, the white figure before him seemed to him to look exactly as his mother had looked long ago. Stumbling over his words, he caught at the first that came.

"I—I think it's all right," he said.

The girl smiled frankly, yet with a dignity in her puzzled air. "I'm afraid I shall have to be right decided," she said. "These roses are private property and I mustn't let you have them."

"Oh!" Philip dropped the great bunch of gorgeous color guiltily by his side, but still held tightly the prickly mass of stems, knowing his right, yet half wondering if he could have made a mistake. He stammered:

"I thought—to whom do they belong?"

"They belong to my cousin, Mr. Philip Fairfield Beckwith"—the sound of his own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for him—for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled. "It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful apparition looked with a gracious certainty of obedience straight into Philip's bewildered eyes.



"The boy Shelby!" Many a time in the months after Philip Beckwith smiled to himself reminiscently, tenderly, as he thought of "the boy Shelby" whom he had read into John Fairfield's letter; "the boy Shelby" who was twenty-two years old and the only child; "the boy Shelby" whom he had blamed with such easy severity for idling at Fairfield; "the boy Shelby" who was no boy at all, but this white flower of girlhood, called—after the quaint and reasonable Southern way—as a boy is called, by the surname of her mother's people.

Toward Westerly, out of the garden of the old time, out of the dimness of a forgotten past, the two took their radiant youth and the brightness of to-day. But a breeze blew across the tangle of weeds and flowers as they wandered away, and whispered a hope, perhaps a promise; for as it touched them each tall stalk nodded gayly and the box hedges rustled delicately an answering undertone. And just at the edge of the woodland, before they were out of sight, the girl turned and threw a kiss back to the roses and the box.

"I always do that," she said. "I love them so!"

Two weeks later a great train rolled into the Grand Central Station of New York at half-past six at night, and from it stepped a monstrosity—a young man without a heart. He had left all of it, more than he had thought he owned, in Kentucky. But he had brought back with him memories which gave him more joy than ever the heart had done, to his best knowledge, in all the years. They were memories of long and sunshiny days; of afternoons spent in the saddle, rushing through grassy lanes where trumpet-flowers flamed over gray farm fences, or trotting slowly down white roads; of whole mornings only an hour long, passed in the enchanted stillness of an old garden; of gay, desultory searches through its length and breadth, and in the park that held it, for buried treasure: of moonlit nights; of roses and June and Kentucky—and always, through all the memories, the presence that made them what they were, that of a girl he loved.

No word of love had been spoken, but the two weeks had made over his life; and he went back to his work with a definite object, a hope stronger than ambition, and, set to it as music to words, came insistently another hope, a dream that he did not let himself dwell on—a longing to make enough money to pay off the mortgage and put Fairfield in order, and live and work there all his life—with Shelby. That was where the thrill of the thought came in, but the place was very dear to him in itself.

The months went, and the point of living now were the mails from the South, and the feast days were the days that brought letters from Fairfield. He had promised to go back for a week at Christmas, and he worked and hoarded all the months between with a thought which he did not formulate, but which ruled his down-sitting and his up-rising, the thought that if he did well and his bank account grew enough to justify it he might, when he saw her at Christmas, tell her what he hoped; ask her—he finished the thought with a jump of his heart. He never worked harder or better, and each check that came in meant a step toward the promised land; and each seemed for the joy that was in it to quicken his pace, to lengthen his stride, to strengthen his touch. Early in November he found one night when he came to his rooms two letters waiting for him with the welcome Kentucky postmark. They were in John Fairfield's handwriting and in his daughter's, and "place aux dames" ruled rather than respect to age, for he opened Shelby's first. His eyes smiling, he read it.

"I am knitting you a diamond necklace for Christmas," she wrote. "Will you like that? Or be sure to write me if you'd rather have me hunt in the garden and dig you up a box of money. I'll tell you—there ought to be luck in the day, for it was hidden on Christmas and it should be found on Christmas; so on Christmas morning we'll have another look, and if you find it I'll catch you 'Christmas gif'' as the darkies do, and you'll have to give it to me, and if I find it I'll give it to you; so that's fair, isn't it? Anyway—" and Philip's eyes jumped from line to line, devouring the clear, running writing. "So bring a little present with you, please—just a tiny something for me," she ended, "for I'm certainly going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'"

Philip folded the letter back into its envelope and put it in his pocket, and his heart felt warmer for the scrap of paper over it. Then he cut John Fairfield's open dreamily, his mind still on the words he had read, on the threat—"I'm going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'" What was there good enough to give her? Himself, he thought humbly, very far from it. With a sigh that was not sad he dismissed the question and began to read the other letter. He stood reading it by the fading light from the window, his hat thrown by him on a chair, his overcoat still on, and, as he read, the smile died from his face. With drawn brows he read on to the end, and then the letter dropped from his fingers to the floor and he did not notice; his eyes stared widely at the high building across the street, the endless rows of windows, the lights flashing into them here and there. But he saw none of it. He saw a stretch of quiet woodland, an old house with great white pillars, a silent, neglected garden, with box hedges sweet and ragged, all waiting for him to come and take care of them—the home of his fathers, the home he had meant, had expected—he knew it now—would be some day his own, the home he had lost! John Fairfield's letter was to tell him that the mortgage on the place, running now so many years, was suddenly to be foreclosed; that, property not being worth much in the neighborhood, no one would take it up; that on January 2nd, Fairfield, the house and land, were to be sold at auction. It was a hard blow to Philip Beckwith. With his hands in his overcoat pockets he began to walk up and down the room, trying to plan, to see if by any chance he might save this place he loved. It would mean eight thousand dollars to pay the mortgage. One or two thousand more would put the estate in order, but that might wait if he could only tide over this danger, save the house and land. An hour he walked so, forgetting dinner, forgetting the heavy coat which he still wore, and then he gave it up. With all he had saved—and it was a fair and promising beginning—he could not much more than half pay the mortgage, and there was no way, which he would consider, by which he could get the money. Fairfield would have to go, and he set his teeth and clinched his fists as he thought how he wanted to keep it. A year ago it had meant nothing to him, a year from now if things went his way he could have paid the mortgage. That it should happen just this year—just now! He could not go down at Christmas; it would break his heart to see the place again as his own when it was just slipping from his grasp. He would wait until it was all over, and go, perhaps, in the spring. The great hope of his life was still his own, but Fairfield had been the setting of that hope; he must readjust his world before he saw Shelby again. So he wrote them that he would not come at present, and then tried to dull the ache of his loss with hard work.

But three days before Christmas, out of the unknown forces beyond his reasoning swept a wave of desire to go South, which took him off his feet. Trained to trust his brain and deny his impulse as he was, yet there was a vein of sentiment, almost of superstition, in him which the thought of the old place pricked sharply to life. This longing was something beyond him—he must go—and he had thrown his decisions to the winds and was feverish until he could get away.

As before, he rode out from the Phoenix Hotel, and at ten o'clock in the morning he turned into Fairfield. It was a still, bright Christmas morning, crisp and cool, and the air like wine. The house stood bravely in the sunlight, but the branches above it were bare and no softening leafage hid the marks of time; it looked old and sad and deserted to-day, and its master gazed at it with a pang in his heart. It was his, and he could not save it. He turned away and walked slowly to the garden, and stood a moment as he had stood last May, with his hand on the stone gateway. It was very silent and lonely here, in the hush of winter; nothing stirred; even the shadows of the interlaced branches above lay almost motionless across the walks.