n the bright, prosperous days; then he
left a few harmless medicines and rose to go, his gaze resting a moment
on Miss Ward, then on Pomp, as if he were hesitating. But he said
nothing until on the walk outside he met the keeper, and recognized a
person to whom he could tell the truth. "There is nothing to be done; he
may recover, he may not; it is a question of strength merely. He needs
no medicines, only nourishing food, rest, and careful tendance."

"He shall have them," answered the keeper briefly. And then the old
gentleman mounted his horse and rode away, his first and last visit to a
national cemetery.

"National!" he said to himself--"national!"

All talk of moving De Rosset ceased, but Miss Ward moved into the old
house. There was not much to move: herself, her one trunk, and Mari, a
black attendant, whose name probably began life as Maria, since the
accent still dwelt on the curtailed last syllable. The keeper went there
once, and once only, and then it was an errand for the sick man, whose
fancies came sometimes at inconvenient hours--when Pomp had gone to
town, for instance. On this occasion the keeper entered the mockery of a
gate and knocked at the front door, from which the bars had been
removed; the piazza still showed its decaying planks, but quick-growing
summer vines had been planted, and were now encircling the old pillars
and veiling all defects with their greenery. It was a woman's pathetic
effort to cover up what can not be covered--poverty. The blinds on one
side were open, and white curtains waved to and fro in the breeze; into
this room he was ushered by Mari. Matting lay on the floor, streaked
here and there ominously by the dampness from the near ground. The
furniture was of dark mahogany, handsome in its day: chairs, a heavy
pier-table with low-down glass, into which no one by any possibility
could look unless he had eyes in his ankles, a sofa with a stiff round
pillow of hair-cloth under each curved end, and a mirror with a
compartment framed off at the top, containing a picture of shepherds and
shepherdesses, and lambs with blue ribbons around their necks, all
enjoying themselves in the most natural and life-like manner. Flowers
stood on the high mantelpiece, but their fragrance could not overcome
the faint odor of the damp straw-matting. On a table were books--a life
of General Lee, and three or four shabby little volumes printed at the
South during the war, waifs of prose and poetry of