Should the occasion arise, pray commend
me to the latter, whose acquaintance I had the honour to make last year
when I visited New York. There, if you please, is a spirit restless and
audacious! The mill on the Rockfish is grinding this spring. The murder
case of which I wrote you will be tried next court day. One Fitch killed
one Thomas Dole in North Garden; knocked at his door one night, called
him out, and shot him down. Dole had thwarted Fitch in some project or
other. I am retained by the State, and I mean to hang Fitch. Adam
Gaudylock says there is a region of the Mississippi where the cotton
grows taller than a man's head. We may find our gold of Ophir in that
plant. To-night I am a victor. I salute you, so much oftener than I a
victor! But victory is a mirage: this that I thought so fair is but a
piece of the desert; the _magnum bonum_ shines, looms, and beckons still
ahead! Had I been defeated, I believe I should have been in better
spirits. Now to the papers which you desired me to read and comment
upon: I find--"

The quill travelled on, conveying to sheet after sheet the opinion upon
certain vexed questions of a very able lawyer. The analysis was keen,
the reasoning just, the judgment final, the advice sound. The years
since that determinative hour in the Richmond book-shop had been well
harvested. The paper when he had finished it would have pleased the
ideal jurist.

He wrote until the clock struck ten; then folded, sealed, and
superscribed his letter, pushed back the heavy hair from his forehead,
and rose from the desk. The long windows opened upon the terrace, and
through them came the moonbeams and the fragrance of the April
night--music too, for Mr. Pincornet was playing the violin. The young
man extinguished the candles, and stepped into the silvery world
without the room. Adam Gaudylock had disappeared, and the overseer was
gone to bed. Lights were out in the quarters; the house was as still and
white as a mansion in a fairy tale. Mr. Pincornet was no skilled
musician, but the air he played was old and sweet, and it served the
hour. Below their mountain-top lay the misty valleys; to the east the
moon-flooded plains; to the west the far line of the Blue Ridge. The
night was cloudless.

Rand stood with his hands upon the balustrade, then walked down the
terrace and paused before the dancing master. "Before he hurt his hand
Mr. Jefferson played the violin beautifully," he said. "When I was
younger,