he ford and Red Fields.

Three days later he rode into Charlottesville and stopped at the office
of Mr. Smith, whom he found at the back of the house, watching from a
chair planted in the sunshine the springing of a line of bulbs. "You
see, sir," quoth the agent, "I cultivate my garden! Tulips here, crocus
there, yonder hyacinths. Red Chalice has been up two days, and my white
Amazon peeped out of the earth yesterday. King Midas and Sulphur and
Madame Mere are on the way. Well, Mr. Cary, I tried my level best with
that commission of yours, and I failed! The boy is not for sale."

"Ah!" said Cary, and stooped to examine the white Amazon. "I hardly
expected, Mr. Smith, that he would be for sale. At no price, I presume?"

"At no price. He is one of the house servants, and his master is
attached to him. I am very sorry, sir."

His client rose from the contemplation of the springing hyacinth. "Give
yourself no uneasiness, Mr. Smith. I am not disappointed. There are
reasons, no doubt, why Mr. Rand declines to part with him. Let us put it
out of mind. What a bright little garden you will have, sir, when tulip,
crocus, and hyacinth are all in bloom!"

He took his leave, and rode homeward through the keen March weather. "I
am beginning to remember quite plainly," he said. "Presently I'll know
it like an old refrain--every word, Saladin, every word, every word,
down to the last black one."

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE SIMPLE RIGHT

An important case in a neighbouring county called Lewis Rand from home,
and kept him an April week in the court room or in a small town's untidy
tavern. It was his habit, known and deferred to, never to accept at such
times the hospitality sure to be pressed upon him. The prominent men of
his party urged him home with them, but accepted his refusal with a nod
of understanding, and rode on strong in the conviction that a man so
absorbed, so given over to watching and guarding his client's interests,
was assuredly a man to be relied upon in any litigation. A great lawyer
was like a great general--headquarters on the field. As for Lewis Rand
and the next election--if he wanted to be Governor of Virginia, men who
heard him in the court room were not the ones to say him nay! To a
rational man his genius vindicated his birth. If he wanted the post, and
if it was to the interest of the state, in God's name let him have
it--old Gideon to the contrary!

Rand won the case, and turned Selim's head towar