u will find
me in rather modest and decidedly airy lodgings, and I cannot offer
you either wild-ducks or venison. A rasher of bacon and a glass of
madeira as we chat over old times: what say you to the bill-of fare?
You remember the old French adage, 'Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime,
faut bien aimer ce que l'on a.'"

"A quelle heure, mon ami?"

"Four o'clock."

And at five that afternoon we were seated together, the remnants
of our frugal repast removed, and on the scrupulously polished old
mahogany table which separated us stood a cut-glass decanter of
old Carolina madeira, the bouquet of which filled the room with its
fragrance.

"Fill your glass, Harry: 'tis not the fragrance of the wine, but the
sentiment connected with it, which prevents me from offering you a
pipe. The odor of the best Virginia would seem to me a desecration.
There are only a dozen bottles left in that cupboard. I never uncork
one except for a near friend. 'Tis out of fashion now: hock and
champagne have taken its place; but, do you know, I like it the better
on that account. It reminds me of the past, and, though still a young
man, it is one of my greatest pleasures to dwell on the picture which
a glass of it never fails to recall to my imagination. You remember
Woodlawn? For five-and-twenty years, during the whole of a long
minority and subsequent travels abroad, those old bottles stood
wreathed with cobwebs in the garret of the old mansion. You drank one
with me in 1859. The rest were buried at the commencement of the war,
and this is one of the few which survived it. There are not many of
your compatriots to whom I would tell the story of its preservation,
for it illustrates a feature of feudal attachment which they
persistently refuse to believe possible.

"You remember the stately old negro who occupied the porter's lodge at
Woodlawn, and who told you with such pride that he and his ancestors
had always occupied a favored post near the great house? You remember,
too, his grand air, fashioned after the gentlemen of the olden time,
the contemporaries of Washington, Rutledge and Pinckney? And in what
awe and reverence his fellow-servants stood of him! Well, when the war
fairly began, and all hope of amicable adjustment was exhausted, I did
what every true man on either side was bound to do--raised a company
for the service, removed my family to an up-country farm, and left Old
John in charge of my residence and interests in the low cou