old to his friend in the small
hours of that night's morning. Let us dispense with quotation marks to
cover it.

You know what my education was. My uncle, whose heir I was supposed to
be, spared no expense to equip me for my life's work. He sent me to the
best schools in the North, and afterwards to the best schools in Europe.
Just at the beginning of the war, and because of it, I returned to
Virginia. I secured a commission in the engineer corps, but I soon
resigned it, because at the beginning of the war there was no earnest
work for the engineer corps to do, and I foolishly thought there never
would be. I enlisted as a private in the artillery, and before the end
of the war I was a captain.

A few months before the war ended, I married Mary. You, of course,
understand. Mary was the daughter of an ancient and honorable house, but
she was living as a dependent in the family of a very remote
relative--so remote that the kinship was rather mythical than real.

At that time I owned, or was supposed to own, my ancestral plantation,
Robinet. My uncle at his death had left it to me.

As a man abundantly able to provide for a wife, I asked Mary to marry
me, and to become the mistress of Robinet.

We were married about the time Fort Harrison fell into the enemy's
hands. I remember that I had to delay the wedding in order to bombard
Fort Harrison with my mortars, in preparation for the infantry assault,
which it was hoped might recover the works.

When that affair was over, and our lines were reconstructed, I got leave
of absence, and Mary and I were married.

I was foolish enough to believe, even in the autumn and winter of 1864,
that we of the South were certain to win the war. As I look back now and
consider the conditions then existing, I wonder at my own stupidity in
not seeing what the end must be. However, that would have made no
difference in any case. I must take Mary out of her condition of
dependence, by marrying her, and I did so.

When the end came, I went home for a little while. My uncle had died in
hopeless despondency. His estate, when I inherited it, was buried in
debt, and with the negroes no longer mine, the creditors clearly saw
that I could never pay out. They descended upon me in a swarm. There
was nothing for me to do but make complete surrender of my possessions
to them. These were sufficient to pay about forty cents on the dollar of
the hereditary debt.

As soon as disaster thus came upon me