e corner of her handkerchief. She must be very old. She
told me she remembered seeing Jefferson at Monticello."

"She's growing younger," the doctor said. "Sixteen or seventeen years
ago she was very feeble and the Ladies' Guild agreed to support her for
life on consideration that she will her house and lot to the church,
next door. Mrs. Poly Gifford refers to her now, I believe, as a
dispensation of Providence. Did she bring the apple-butter herself?"

"No," smiled John Valiant. "She sent it afterward by Miss Rickey
Snyder."

The major stroked his imperial. "Rickey's an institution," he said. "I
hope she gave us all good characters. I'd hate to have Rickey Snyder
down on me! Have you heard her history?"

"Yes, Uncle Jefferson told me."

"I'm glad of that," shot out the doctor. "Now, we needn't have it from
Bristow. He's as fond of oratory as a maltese cat is of milk."

"He gave me a hint of the major's powers in that direction, in his
account of Greef King's trial."

"Humph!" retorted the doctor gloomily, "that was in his palmy days.
He's fallen off since then. Plenty of others been here to bore you,
I reckon, though of course you don't remember all the names yet."

Valiant summoned Uncle Jefferson.

"Yas, suh," grinned the old darky pridefully, "de folkses mos' lam de
face off'n dat-ar ol' knockah. Day 'fo' yistiddy dah wuz Mars' Quarles
en Jedge en Mis' Chalmahs. De jedge done sen' er streng o' silvah
perch."

"His place is Gladden Hall," the major said, "one of the finest mansions
round here. A sportsman, sah, and one of the best pokah hands in the
county."

"--En yistiddy dah's Mars' Chilly Lusk en de Pen'letons en de Byloes en
Mars' Livy Stowe f'om Seven Oaks, en de Woodrows en--"

"That'll do," said the major. "I'll just run over the tax-list; it'll be
quicker. There are kindly people here, sah," he went on, "but after all,
it's a narrow circle. We have our little pleasures and courtships and
scandals and we are satisfied with them. We're not gadabouts. Our girls
haven't all flirted around Europe and they don't talk of the Pincio and
the Champs Elysees as if they were Capitol Hill and Madison Street in
Richmond. But if I may say so, sah, I think in Virginia we get a little
closer to life as God Almighty intended it than people in some of your
big cities."

"Come, Bristow," interrupted the doctor, "tell the truth. This dog-gone
borough is as dull as a mud fence sticking with tadpoles. There isn't a