ates, and the magnificent
hospitality of our hosts, was a revelation to me; and an occasional
reference by one of the older servants to the grandeur of antebellum
days indicated a condition of even greater splendor and luxury. But the
cruel hand of war had devastated and impoverished the country, the
slaves were freed, and the land for years lay untilled and neglected.
Marse Henry, the head of the house, was killed in almost the first
battle of the war. Marse Breckinridge died, a prisoner in Fort Warren,
and now Marse Preston had followed them to the land of shadows. Uncle
Eph'm, himself, was getting very feeble and helpless, and it would not
be long before he joined his loved ones on the other shore. De good ole
times were gone forever!

It was with regret that I left this attractive home, and I gladly
accepted an invitation to return in the fall for the shooting. For the
shooting, indeed! Why, _that_ was all over! Dan Cupid never aimed truer!
My wife--a Kentuckian--says that I will never shine as a Nimrod, but it
seems to me that I have had pretty fair success in that role.

II

SENATOR BULL AND MR. RIDLEY--TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF THE NEWLY
FLEDGED MEMBER.

Again on the train, our troubles were over, and we pulled out of the
station amid cheers and yells from hundreds of throats--an odd contrast
to the mournful silence of the throng upon our arrival.

In our party were Senators Baker, of Kentucky; Bull, of Montana;
Wendell, of Massachusetts; Hammond, of Michigan; Pennypacker, of West
Virginia; and Congressmen Holloway, of Illinois; Manysnifters, of
Georgia; Van Rensselaer, of New York; a majority of the Kentucky
delegation, Mr. Ridley, Senator Bull's private secretary, and several
newspaper men.

Senator Bull is seventy, tall and massive. His features are striking--a
big nose, heavy, grizzled mustache, bushy brows emphasizing eyes blue
and kindly, a wide mouth, tobacco-stained, with a constant movement of
the jaws--bovine, but shrewdly ruminative. A leonine head of shaggy
white hair crowns the whole. Ridley, the private secretary, is about the
same age. He is a ruddy-cheeked, round-paunched little fellow, scarcely
measuring up to the Senator's shoulder. The thin fringe of hair around
his shining pate gives him the appearance of a jolly friar. He peers at
you through gold-rimmed spectacles, and is quite helpless without them.
He has been with Senator Bull for years, serving him faithfully in
various