n the
pike, saw the light in the long-deserted cabin back of the new foundry
plant; saw this and was overtaken at the Woodlawn gates by Thomas
Jefferson with Longfellow and the buggy. And he could not well help
observing that the buggy had been lightened of its burden of household
supplies.

Tom turned the horse over to William Henry Harrison and went in to his
belated dinner somberly reflective. He was not sorry to find that his
mother and father had gone over to the manor-house. Solitude was
grateful at the moment; he was glad of the chance to try to think
himself uninterruptedly out of the snarl of misunderstanding in which
his impulsiveness had entangled him.

The pointing of the thought was to see Ardea and have it out with her at
once. Reconsidered, it appeared the part of prudence to wait a little.
The muddiest pool will settle if time and freedom from ill-judged
disturbance be given it. But we, who have known Thomas Jefferson from
his beginnings, may be sure that it was the action-thought that
triumphed. _They also serve who only stand and wait_, was meaningless
comfort to him; and when he had finished his solitary dinner and had
changed his clothes, he strode across the double lawns and rang the
manor-house bell.

XXIV

THE UNDER-DEPTHS

The Deer Trace family and the two guests from Woodlawn were in the
music-room when Tom was admitted, with Ardea at the piano playing war
songs for the pleasuring of her grandfather and the ex-artilleryman.
Under cover of the music, Tom slipped into the circle of listeners and
went to sit beside his mother. There was a courteous hand-wave of
welcome from Major Dabney, but Miss Euphrasia seemed not to see him. He
saw and understood, and was obstinately impervious to the chilling east
wind in that quarter. It was with Ardea that he must make his peace, and
he settled himself to wait for his opportunity.

It bade fair to be a long time coming. Ardea's repertoire was apparently
inexhaustible, and at the end of an added hour he began to suspect that
she knew what was in store for her and was willing to postpone the
afflictive moment. From the battle hymns of the Confederacy to the
militant revival melodies best loved by Martha Gordon the transition was
easy; and from these she drifted through a Beethoven sonata to Mozart,
and from Mozart to Chopin.

Thomas Jefferson knew music as the barbarian knows it, which is to say
that it lighted strange fires in him; stirred and