presently, and then we'll buy it, I suppose, at our
own price. It runs through scrub land populated by old field pines. How
is that miner brother of yours, Ben? I saw Sally at the theatre with
him. You've got a jewel, my boy, there's no doubt of that. When I looked
at her sailing down the room on his arm last night, by George, I wished
I was forty years younger and married to her myself."

Some hours later I repeated his remark to Sally, when I went home at
dusk and found her sitting before a wood fire in her bedroom, with her
hat and coat on, just as she had dropped there after a drive with
President.

"Well, I wouldn't have the General at any age. You needn't be jealous,
Ben," she responded. "I'm too much like Aunt Matoaca."

"He always said you were," I retorted, "but, oh, Sally, you are an
angel! When I saw you rise at dinner last night, I wanted to squeeze you
in my arms and kiss you before them all."

The little scar by her mouth dimpled with the old childish expression of
archness.

"Suppose you do it now, sir," she rejoined, with the primness of Miss
Mitty, and a little later, "What else was there to do but rise, you
absurd boy? Poor mamma used to tell me that grandpapa always said to
her, 'When in doubt choose the kindest way.'"

"And yet he disinherited his favourite daughter."

"Which only proves, my dear, how much easier it is to make a proverb
than to practise it."

"Do you know, Sally," I began falteringly, after a minute, "there is
something I ought to tell you, and that is, that when I looked up at the
table last night and saw President in the doorway, my first feeling was
one of shame."

She rubbed her cheek softly against my sleeve.

"Shall I confess something just as dreadful?" she asked. "When I looked
up and saw him standing there my first feeling was exactly the same."

"Sally, I am so thankful."

"You wicked creature, to want me to be as bad as yourself."

"It couldn't have lasted with you but a second."

"It didn't, but a second is an hour in the mind of a snob."

"Well, we were both snobs together, and that's some comfort, anyway."

For the three days that President remained with us he wore my clothes,
in which he looked more than ever like a miner attired for church, and
carried himself with a resigned and humble manner.

Sally took him to the theatre and to drive with her in the afternoon,
and I carried him to the General's office and over the Capitol, which he
surveyed w