that we have always regarded as aliens that I'm not sure that Jake will
know you when he sees you. But Jake has a keen perception, and I rather
believe that he will know a Virginia Carteret at sight. I can't conceive
that even ten years in Yankee-land could change a boy of mine. Anyhow,
I'm sure you will know Jake. I put eighteen collars in his valise. If
he should have to buy others, he wears a number 15-1/2. Please see that
he gets the right ones. He will be no trouble to you at all.

"'If you are not too busy, I'd like for you to find him a place to board
where they have white-meal corn-bread, and try to keep him from taking
his shoes off in your office or on the street. His right foot swells a
little, and he likes to be comfortable.

"'If you can spare the time, count his handkerchiefs when they come back
from the wash. I bought him a dozen new ones before he left. He should
be there about the time this letter reaches you. I told him to go
straight to your office when he arrives.'"

As soon as Blandford had finished the reading of this, something
happened (as there should happen in stories and must happen on the
stage).

Percival, the office boy, with his air of despising the world's output
of mill supplies and leather belting, came in to announce that a colored
gentleman was outside to see Mr. Blandford Carteret.

"Bring him in," said Blandford, rising.

John Carteret swung around in his chair and said to Percival: "Ask him
to wait a few minutes outside. We'll let you know when to bring him in."

Then he turned to his cousin with one of those broad, slow smiles that
was an inheritance of all the Carterets, and said:

"Bland, I've always had a consuming curiosity to understand the
differences that you haughty Southerners believe to exist between 'you
all' and the people of the North. Of course, I know that you consider
yourselves made out of finer clay and look upon Adam as only a
collateral branch of your ancestry; but I don't know why. I never could
understand the differences between us."

"Well, John," said Blandford, laughing, "what you don't understand about
it is just the difference, of course. I suppose it was the feudal way
in which we lived that gave us our lordly baronial airs and feeling of
superiority."

"But you are not feudal, now," went on John. "Since we licked you
and stole your cotton and mules you've had to go to work just as we
'damyankees,' as you call us, have always been doing. And