completely won him over.

It was not long before the two were like old chums. The Major set
apart each afternoon to read to him the manuscript of his book. During
the anecdotes Hargraves never failed to laugh at exactly the right
point. The Major was moved to declare to Miss Lydia one day that young
Hargraves possessed remarkable perception and a gratifying respect for
the old regime. And when it came to talking of those old days--if
Major Talbot liked to talk, Mr. Hargraves was entranced to listen.

Like almost all old people who talk of the past, the Major loved to
linger over details. In describing the splendid, almost royal, days of
the old planters, he would hesitate until he had recalled the name of
the negro who held his horse, or the exact date of certain minor
happenings, or the number of bales of cotton raised in such a year;
but Hargraves never grew impatient or lost interest. On the contrary,
he would advance questions on a variety of subjects connected with the
life of that time, and he never failed to extract ready replies.

The fox hunts, the 'possum suppers, the hoe-downs and jubilees in the
negro quarters, the banquets in the plantation-house hall, when
invitations went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the
neighboring gentry; the Major's duel with Rathbone Culbertson about
Kitty Chalmers, who afterward married a Thwaite of South Carolina; and
private yacht races for fabulous sums on Mobile Bay; the quaint
beliefs, improvident habits, and loyal virtues of the old slaves--all
these were subjects that held both the Major and Hargraves absorbed
for hours at a time.

Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to
his room after his turn at the theater was over, the Major would
appear at the door of his study and beckon archly to him. Going in,
Hargraves would find a little table set with a decanter, sugar bowl,
fruit, and a big bunch of fresh green mint.

"It occurred to me," the Major would begin--he was always
ceremonious--"that perhaps you might have found your duties at the--at
your place of occupation--sufficiently arduous to enable you, Mr.
Hargraves, to appreciate what the poet might well have had in his mind
when he wrote, 'tired Nature's sweet restorer'--one of our Southern
juleps."

It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank
among artists when he began, and he never varied the process. With
what delicacy he bruised the mint; wi