haking of the dry bones among the mechanics of the
town. A small army of workmen invaded the premises, and repairs and
improvements of all descriptions went rapidly forward--much more
rapidly than was usual in Clarendon, for the colonel let all his work
by contract, and by a system of forfeits and premiums kept it going at
high pressure. In two weeks the house was shingled, painted inside and
out, the fences were renewed, the outhouses renovated, and the grounds
put in order.

The stream of ready money thus put into circulation by the colonel,
soon permeated all the channels of local enterprise. The barber, out
of his profits, began the erection of a row of small houses for
coloured tenants. This gave employment to masons and carpenters, and
involved the sale and purchase of considerable building material.
General trade felt the influence of the enhanced prosperity.
Groceries, dry-goods stores and saloons, did a thriving business. The
ease with which the simply organised community responded to so slight
an inflow of money and energy, was not without a pronounced influence
upon the colonel's future conduct.

When his house was finished, Colonel French hired a housekeeper, a
coloured maid, a cook and a coachman, bought several horses and
carriages, and, having sent to New York for his books and pictures and
several articles of furniture which he had stored there, began
housekeeping in his own establishment. Succumbing willingly to the
charm of old associations, and entering more fully into the social
life of the town, he began insensibly to think of Clarendon as an
established residence, where he would look forward to spending a
certain portion of each year. The climate was good for Phil, and to
bring up the boy safely would be henceforth his chief concern in life.
In the atmosphere of the old town the ideas of race and blood attained
a new and larger perspective. It would be too bad for an old family,
with a fine history, to die out, and Phil was the latest of the line
and the sole hope of its continuance.

The colonel was conscious, somewhat guiltily conscious, that he had
neglected the South and all that pertained to it--except the market
for burlaps and bagging, which several Southern sales agencies had
attended to on behalf of his firm. He was aware, too, that he had felt
a certain amount of contempt for its poverty, its quixotic devotion to
lost causes and vanished ideals, and a certain disgusted impatience
with