was large enough as it
was. So it stood as he had left it, with its two tall chimneys,
one at each end of the mid-body of the house, marking the two great
fireplaces, yet another chimney at the other end of the lesser wing.

Straight through the mid-body of the house ran a wide hall, usually
left open to all the airs of heaven; and through this one could see
far out over the approach, entirely through the house itself, and
note the framed picture beyond of woods glowing with foliage, and
masses of shrubbery, and lesser trees among which lay the white
huts of the negroes. Still to the left, beyond the existing wing,
lay the fenced vegetable gardens where grew rankly all manner of
provender intended for the bounteous table, whose boast it was
that, save for sugar and coffee, nothing was used at Tallwoods
which was not grown upon its grounds.

So lived one, and thus indeed lived more than one, baron on
American soil not so long ago, when this country was more American
than it is to-day--more like the old world in many ways, more like
a young world in many others. Here, for thirty years of his life,
had lived the present owner of Tallwoods, sole male of the family
surviving in these parts.

It might have been called matter of course that Warville Dunwody
should be chosen to the state legislature. So chosen, he had,
through sheer force of his commanding nature, easily become a
leader among men not without strength and individuality. Far up in
the northern comer, where the capital of the state lay, men spoke
of this place hid somewhere down among the hills of the lower
country. Those who in the easier acres of the northwestern prairie
lands reared their own corn and swine and cotton, often wondered at
the half-wild man from St. Francois, who came riding into the
capital on a blooded horse, who was followed by negroes also on
blooded horses, a self-contained man who never lacked money, who
never lacked wit, whose hand was heavy, whose tongue was keen,
whose mind was strong and whose purse was ever open.

The state which had produced a Benton was now building up a rival
to Benton. That giant, then rounding out a history of thirty years'
continuous service in the Senate of the United States, unlike the
men of this weaker day, reserved the right to his own honest and
personal political belief. He steadily refused to countenance the
extending of slavery, although himself a holder of slaves; and,
although he admitted