younger man flushed. "This
is an enemy," said a voice within him. He bowed in return, and he no
longer felt any distrust of himself. When Miss Dandridge, leaving the
harpsichord, established herself upon the sofa before him and opened a
lively fire of questions and comment, he answered with readiness. He
thought her pretty figure in amber lutestring, and the turn of her
ringleted head, and the play of her scarlet lips all very good to look
at, and he looked without hesitation. The account which she demanded of
the accident which had placed him there he gave with a free, bold, and
pleasing touch, and the thanks that were her due as the immediate
Samaritan he chivalrously paid. Unity made friends with all parties, and
she now found, with some amusement, that she was going to like Lewis
Rand.

Rand looked too, freely and quietly, at the young men, his fellow
guests. Each, he knew, was arrogantly impatient of his presence there.
Well, they had nothing to do with it! His sense of humour awoke, and
Federalist hauteur ceased to fret him. Colonel Churchill, the most
genial of men, pushed his chair into the Republican's neighbourhood, and
plunged into talk. Conversation in Virginia, where men were concerned,
opened with politics, crops, or horseflesh. Colonel Dick chose the
second, and Rand, who had a first-hand knowledge of the subject, met him
in the fields. The trinity of corn, wheat, and tobacco occupied them for
a while, as did the fruit and an experiment in vine-growing. The horse
then entered the conversation, and Rand asked after Goldenrod, that had
won the cup at Fredericksburg. "I broke him for you, you know, sir,
seven years ago."

Colonel Churchill, who in his own drawing-room would not for the world
have mentioned this little fact to his guest, suddenly thought within
his honest heart, "This is a man, even if he is a damned Republican!" He
gave a circumstantial account of Goldenrod, and of Goldenrod's brother,
Firefly, and he said to himself, "I'll keep off politics." Presently
Rand began to speak of Adam Gaudylock's account of New Orleans.

"Ay, ay," said the Colonel, "there's a city! But it's not English--it is
Spanish and French. And all that new land now! 'twill never be
held--begging your pardon, Mr. Rand--by Thomas Jefferson and a lot of
new-fangled notions! No Spaniard ever did believe that all men are born
equal, and no Frenchman ever wanted liberty long--not unadorned liberty,
anyway. As for our own peop