busy with beam and rafter when
at eight o'clock, with some help from the negro, he descended the stairs
and crossed the hall to the parlour door. How was he dressed? He was
dressed in a high-collared coat of blue cloth with eagle buttons, in
cloth breeches and silk stockings, in shoes with silver buckles, and a
lawn neckcloth of many folds. His hair was innocent of powder, and cut
short in what the period supposed to be the high Roman fashion. It was
his chief touch of the Republican. In the matter of dress he had not his
leader's courage. Abhorring slovenliness and the Jacobin motley, he
would not affect them. He was dressed in his best for this evening; and
if his attire was not chosen as Ludwell Cary would have chosen, it was
yet the dress of a gentleman, and it was worn with dignity.

Music was playing, as he paused at the half-open door,--he could see
Miss Dandridge at the harpsichord. The room seemed very light. For a
moment he ceased to be the master-builder and sank to the estate of the
apprentice, awkward and eaten with self-distrust; the next, with a
characteristic abrupt motion of head and hand, he recovered himself,
waved Joab aside, and boldly crossed the threshold.

Unity, at the harpsichord, was playing over, very rapidly, one after
another, reels, hornpipes, jigs, and Congos, and looking, meanwhile,
slyly out of velvet eyes at Fairfax Cary, who had asked for a
particularly tender serenade. He stood beside her, and strove for
injured dignity. It was a day of open courtship, and polite Albemarle
watched with admiration the younger Cary's suit to Miss Dandridge. He
had ridden alone to Fontenoy; his brother, who had business in
Charlottesville, promising to join him later in the evening. Mr. Ned
Hunter, too, was at Fontenoy, and he also would have been leaning over
the harpsichord but for the fact that Colonel Dick had fastened upon him
and was demonstrating with an impressive forefinger the feasibility of
widening into a highway fit for a mail-coach a certain forest track
running over the mountains and through the adjoining county. They stood
upon the hearth, and Mr. Hunter could see Miss Dandridge only by much
craning of the neck. "Yes, yes," he said vaguely, "it can easily be
widened, sir."

Major Churchill, playing Patience at the small table, raised his head
like a war-horse. "Nonsense! widen on one side and you will fall into
the river; on the other, and a pretty cliff you'll have to climb! You
cou