oss her own dinner table with my secret
written in my eyes for her husband to read. A fierce sense of possession
swept over me, and I felt angered because his longing gaze was on her
flushed cheeks and bare shoulders.

"No, no wine. I've drunk my last glass of wine unless I may hope for it
in heaven," I heard the General say; "a little Scotch whiskey now and
then will see me safely to my grave."

"From champagne to Scotch whiskey was a flat fall, General," observed
Mrs. Tyler, my sprightly neighbour.

"It's not so flat as the fall to Lithia water, though," retorted the
General.

I was about to join vacantly in the laugh, when a sound in the doorway
caused me to lift my eyes from my plate, and the next instant I sat
paralysed by the figure that towered there over the palms and azaleas.

"Why, Benjy boy!" cried a voice, in a tone of joyous surprise, and while
every head turned instantly in the direction of the words, the candles
and the roses swam in a blur of colour before my eyes. Standing on the
threshold, between two flowering azaleas, with a palm branch waving
above his head, was President, my brother, who was a miner. Twenty years
ago I had last seen him, and though he was rougher and older and greyer
now, he had the same honest blue eyes and the same kind, sheepish face.
The clothes he wore were evidently those in which he dressed himself for
church on Sunday, and they made him ten times more awkward, ten times
more ill at ease, than he would have looked in his suit of jeans.

"Why, Benjy boy!" he burst out again; "and little Jessy!"

I sprang to my feet, while a hot wave swept over me at the thought that
for a single dreadful instant I had been ashamed of my brother. Already
I had pushed back my chair, but before I could move from my place, Sally
had walked the length of the table, and stood, tall and queenly, between
the flowering azaleas, with her hand outstretched. There was no shame in
her face, no embarrassment, no hesitation. Before I could speak she had
turned and come back to us, with her arm through President's, and never
in my eyes had she appeared so noble, so high-bred, so thoroughly a
Bland and a Fairfax as she did at that moment.

"Governor, this is my brother, Mr. Starr," she said in her low, clear
voice. "Ben has not seen him for twenty years, so if you will pardon
him, he will go upstairs with him to his room."

As I went toward her my glance swept the table for Jessy, and I saw that
she