en, and Harry felt as
they passed by, bright of face and soft of voice, that the clouds were
gathering heavily over them.

But he was too young himself for the feeling to endure long. Dalton was
proposing that they go in and they promptly joined the stream of entering
guests. Randolph soon found them and presented them to Mrs. Curtis,
a large woman of middle years, and dignified manner, related to nearly
all the old families of Virginia, and a descendant of a collateral branch
of the Washingtons. Her husband, William Curtis, seemed to be of a
different type, a man of sixty, tall, thin and more reserved than most
Southerners of his time. His thin lips were usually compressed and his
pale blue eyes were lacking in warmth. But the long strong line of his
jaw showed that he was a man of strength and decision.

"A Northern bough on a Southern tree," whispered Dalton, as they passed
on. "He comes from some place up the valley and they say that the North
itself has not his superior in financial skill."

"I did not warm to him at first," said Harry, "but I respect him.
As you know, George, we've put too little stress upon his kind of
ability. We'll need him and more like him when the Confederacy is
established. We'll have to build ourselves up as a great power, and
that's done by trade and manufactures more than by arms."

"It's so, Harry. But listen to that music!"

A band of four pieces placed behind flowers and shrubbery was playing.
Here was no blare of trumpets or call of bugles. It was the music of the
dance and the sentimental old songs of the South, nearly all of which had
a sad and wailing note. Harry heard the four black men play the songs
that he had heard Samuel Jarvis sing, deep in the Kentucky mountains,
and his heart beat with an emotion that he could not understand. Was
it a cry for peace? Did his soul tell him that an end should come to
fighting? Then throbbed the music of the lines:

Soft o'er the fountain lingering falls the Southern moon
Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon.
In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the moonlight loves to dwell
Weary looks, yet tender, speak their fond farewell.
Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part,
Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart!

The music of the sad old song throbbed and throbbed, and sank deep into
Harry's heart. At another time he might not have been stirred, but at
this moment he was responsive in every fiber. H