n I saw that many of the
warehouses along the wharves were heaps of ruins. My father said this
was that the town might be the better defended.

We bent our way towards one of the sandy streets where the great houses
were. And to my surprise we turned in at a gate, and up a path leading
to the high steps of one of these. Under the high portico the door was
open, but the house within was dark. My father paused, and the hand he
held to mine trembled. Then he stepped across the threshold, and raising
the big polished knocker that hung on the panel, let it drop. The sound
reverberated through the house, and then stillness. And then, from
within, a shuffling sound, and an old negro came to the door. For an
instant he stood staring through the dusk, and broke into a cry.

"Marse Alec!" he said.

"Is your master at home?" said my father.

Without another word he led us through a deep hall, and out into a
gallery above the trees of a back garden, where a gentleman sat smoking a
long pipe. The old negro stopped in front of him.

"Marse John," said he, his voice shaking, "heah's Marse Alec done come
back."

The gentleman got to his feet with a start. His pipe fell to the floor,
and the ashes scattered on the boards and lay glowing there.

"Alec!" he cried, peering into my father's face, "Alec! You're not
dead."

"John," said my father, "can we talk here?"

"Good God!" said the gentleman, "you're just the same. To think of
it--to think of it! Breed, a light in the drawing-room."

There was no word spoken while the negro was gone, and the time seemed
very long. But at length he returned, a silver candlestick in each hand.

"Careful," cried the gentleman, petulantly, "you'll drop them."

He led the way into the house, and through the hall to a massive door of
mahogany with a silver door-knob. The grandeur of the place awed me, and
well it might. Boy-like, I was absorbed in this. Our little mountain
cabin would almost have gone into this one room. The candles threw their
flickering rays upward until they danced on the high ceiling. Marvel of
marvels, in the oval left clear by the heavy, rounded cornice was a
picture.

The negro set down the candles on the marble top of a table. But the air
of the room was heavy and close, and the gentleman went to a window and
flung it open. It came down instantly with a crash, so that the panes
rattled again.

"Curse these Rebels," he shouted, "they've taken our window weights to
ma