to them, with my back to the horses; and the old
negro coachman, disappointed at the length of the wait, pulled the reins
gently and gave a slight, admonishing flick at the broad flanks of the
roans. Behind the barouche the school children still fluttered, and
turning in his seat, the General looked back angrily and threatened them
with a wave of his big ebony walking-stick.

"What is it, Sally?" I asked, striving to force a curiosity my
wretchedness prevented me from feeling; "can't you unfold the mystery?"

"Be patient, be patient," she responded gaily, leaning back beside the
General, as we rolled down the wide street under the wilted, dusty
leaves of the trees. "Haven't you noticed for weeks that the General and
I have had a secret?"

"Yes, I've noticed it, but I thought you'd tell me when the time came."

"We shan't tell him, shall we, General?--We'll show him."

"Ah, there's time enough, time enough," returned the General,
absent-mindedly, for he had not been listening. His resolute, bulldog
face, flushed now by the heat and covered with a fine perspiration, had
taken on an absorbed and pondering look. "I never come along here that
it doesn't put me back at least fifty years," he observed, leaning over
his side of the barouche, and peering down one of the side streets that
led past the churchyard. "Sorry they've been meddling with that old
church. Better have left it as it used to be in my boyhood. Do you see
that little house there, set back in the yard, with the chimney
crumbling to pieces? That was the first school I ever went to, and it
was taught by old Miss Deborah Timberlake, the sister of William
Timberlake who shot all those stags' heads you've got hanging in your
hall. Nobody ever knew why she taught school. Plenty to eat and drink.
William gave her everything that she wanted, but she got cranky when
she'd turned sixty, and insisted on being independent. Independent, she
said! Pish! Tush. Never learned a word from her. Taught us English
history, then Virginia history. As for the rest of America, she used to
say it didn't have a history, merely a past. Mentioned the Boston tea
party once by mistake, and had to explain that _that_ was an incident,
not history. Well, well, it seems a thousand years ago. Never could
understand, to save my life, why she took to teaching. Had all she
wanted. Her brother William was an odd man. A fine toast. I never heard
a better story--I remember them even as a boy--and o