id Lesponts. "The fellow who had made the
row about the lower berth turned out to be a great friend of the head of
the Pullman Company, and he got him the offer of a place at three times
the salary he got, but after consideration, he declined it. He would
have had to come North, and he said that he could not do that: his
wife's health was not very robust and he did not know how she could
stand the cold climate; then, she had made her friends, and she was too
old to try to make a new set; and finally, their little girl was buried
there, and they did not want to leave her; so he declined. When she
died, he said, or whichever one of them died first, the other would come
back home to the old place in Virginia, and bring the other two with
him, so they could all be at home together again. Meantime, they were
very comfortable and well satisfied."

There was a pause after Lesponts ended, and then one of the fellows rang
the bell and said, "Let's drink the old Captain's health," which was
unanimously agreed to. Newton walked over to a table and wrote a note,
and then slipped out of the club; and when next day I inquired after
him of the boy at the door, he said he had left word to tell anyone who
asked for him, that he would not be back till after Christmas; that he
had gone home to Virginia. Several of the other fellows went off home
too, myself among them, and I was glad I did, for I heard one of the men
say he never knew the club so deserted as it was that Christmas-day.

LITTLE DARBY

I

The County had been settled as a "frontier" in early colonial days, and
when it ceased to be frontier, settlement had taken a jump beyond it,
and in a certain sense over it, to the richer lands of the Piedmont.
When, later on, steam came, the railway simply cut across it at its
narrowest part, and then skirted along just inside its border on
the bank of the little river which bounded it on the north, as if it
intentionally left it to one side. Thus, modern progress had not greatly
interfered with it either for good or bad, and its development was
entirely natural.

It was divided into "neighborhoods", a name in itself implying something
both of its age and origin; for the population was old, and the customs
of life and speech were old likewise.

This chronicle, however, is not of the "neighborhoods", for they were
known, or may be known by any who will take the trouble to plunge
boldly in and throw themselves on the hospitali