ath his hat, framed his ruddy
face in silver. "There are the lights of Uplands," he said suddenly, with a
wave of his hand.

Betty quickened her pace to his, and they went on in silence. Through the
thick grove that ended at the roadside she saw the windows of her home
flaming amid the darkness. Farther away there were the small lights of the
negro cabins in the "quarters," and a great one from the barn door where
the field hands were strumming upon their banjos.

"I reckon supper's ready," she remarked, walking faster. "Yonder comes
Peter, from the kitchen with the waffles."

They entered an iron gate that opened from the road, and went up a lane of
lilac bushes to the long stuccoed house, set with detached wings in a grove
of maples. "Why, there's papa looking for me," cried the child, as a man's
figure darkened the square of light from the hall and came between the
Doric columns of the portico down into the drive.

"You won't have to search far, Governor," called the Major, in his ringing
voice, and, as the other came up to him, he stopped to shake hands. "Miss
Betty has given me the pleasure of a stroll with her."

"Ah, it was like you, Major," returned the other, heartily. "I'm afraid it
isn't good for your gout, though."

He was a small, soldierly-looking man, with a clean-shaven, classic face,
and thick, brown hair, slightly streaked with gray. Beside the Major's
gaunt figure he appeared singularly boyish, though he held himself severely
to the number of his inches, and even added, by means of a simplicity
almost august, a full cubit to his stature. Ten years before he had been
governor of his state, and to his friends and neighbours the empty honour,
at least, was still his own.

"Pooh! pooh!" the older man protested airily, "the gout's like a woman, my
dear sir--if you begin to humour it, you'll get no rest. If you deny
yourself a half bottle of port, the other half will soon follow. No, no, I
say--put a bold foot on the matter. Don't give up a good thing for the sake
of a bad one, sir. I remember my grandfather in England telling me that at
his first twinge of gout he took a glass of sherry, and at the second he
took two. 'What! would you have my toe become my master?' he roared to the
doctor. 'I wouldn't give in if it were my whole confounded foot, sir!' Oh,
those were ripe days, Governor!"

"A little overripe for the toe, I fear, Major."

"Well, well, we're sober enough now, sir, sober enough and to