e saw once more the green
wilderness, and he heard once more the mellow tones of the singer coming
back in far echoes from the gorges.

"Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part," hummed Dalton, but
Harry was still far away in the green wilderness, listening to the singer
of the mountains. Then the singer stopped suddenly, and he was listening
once more to the startling prediction of the old, old woman:

"I am proud that our house has sheltered you, but it is not for the last
time. You will come again, and you will be thin and pale and in rags,
and you will fall at the door. I see you coming with these two eyes of
mine."

That prediction had been made a long time ago, years since, it seemed,
but whenever it returned to him, and it returned at most unexpected times,
it lost nothing of its amazing vividness and power; rather they were
increased. Could it be true that the supremely old had a vision or
second sight? Then he rebuked himself angrily. There was nothing
supernatural in this world.

"Wake up, Harry! What are you thinking about?" whispered Dalton sharply.
"You seem to be dreaming, and here's a house full of pretty girls,
with more than a half-dozen looking at you, the gallant young officer of
the Army of Northern Virginia, the story of whose romantic exploits had
already reached Richmond."

"I was dreaming and I apologize," said Harry. That minute in which he
had seen so much, so far away, passed utterly, and in another minute both
he and Dalton were dancing with Virginia girls, as fair as dreams to
these two, who had looked so long only upon the tanned faces of soldiers.

Both he and Dalton were at home in a half-hour. People in the Old South
then, as in the New South now, are closely united by ties of kinship
which are acknowledged as far as they run. One is usually a member of a
huge clan and has all the privileges that clanship can confer. Kentucky
was the daughter of Virginia, and mother and daughter were fond of each
other, as they are to-day.

After the third dance Harry was sitting with Rosamond Lawrence of
Petersburg in a window seat. She was a slender blonde girl, and the
dancing had made the pink in her cheeks deepen into a flush.

"You're from Kentucky, I know," said Miss Lawrence, "but you haven't yet
told me your town."

"Pendleton. It's small but it's on the map. My father is a colonel in
the Western army."

"Aren't you a Virginian by blood? Most all Kentuckians are