, before the old horse was caught and brought back into
bondage. After that Virginia took long drives with her father, and coming
home, they would sit in the summer house high above the Merimec,
listening to the crickets' chirp, and watching the day fade upon the
water. The Colonel, who had always detested pipes, learned to smoke a
corncob. He would sit by the hour, with his feet on the rail of the porch
and his hat tilted back, while Virginia read to him. Poe and Wordsworth
and Scott he liked, but Tennyson was his favorite. Such happiness could
not last.

One afternoon when Virginia was sitting in the summer house alone, her
thoughts wandering back, as they sometimes did, to another afternoon she
had spent there,--it seemed so long ago,--when she saw Mammy Easter
coming toward her.

"Honey, dey's comp'ny up to de house. Mister Hopper's done arrived. He's
on de porch, talkin' to your Pa. Lawsey, look wha he come!"

In truth, the solid figure of Eliphalet himself was on the path some
twenty yards behind her. His hat was in his hand; his hair was plastered
down more neatly than ever, and his coat was a faultless and sober
creation of a Franklin Avenue tailor. He carried a cane, which was
unheard of. Virginia sat upright, and patted her skirts with a gesture of
annoyance--what she felt was anger, resentment. Suddenly she rose, swept
past Mammy, and met him ten paces from the summer house.

"How-dy-do, Miss Virginia," he cried pleasantly. "Your father had a
notion you might be here." He said fayther.

Virginia gave him her hand limply. Her greeting would have frozen a man
of ardent temperament. But it was not precisely ardor that Eliphalet
showed. The girl paused and examined him swiftly. There was something in
the man's air to-day.

"So you were not caught?" she said.

Her words seemed to relieve some tension in him. He laughed noiselessly.

"I just guess I wahn't."

"How did you escape?" she asked, looking at him curiously.

"Well, I did, first of all. You're considerable smart, Miss Jinny, but
I'll bet you can't tell me where I was, now."

"I do not care to know. The place might save you again."

He showed his disappointment. "I cal'lated it might interest you to know
how I dodged the Sovereign State of Missouri. General Halleck made an
order that released a man from enrolling on payment of ten dollars. I
paid. Then I was drafted into the Abe Lincoln Volunteers; I paid a
substitute. And so here I be, exerci