him, and a paper
fluttered from his pocket. He caught it, and as he pulled the horse to a
trot, he saw that it was his cousin's letter. So, walking now along the
brown shadows and golden sunlight of the long white pike, he fell to
wondering about the family he was going to visit. He opened the folded
letter and read:

"My dear Cousin," it said--the kinship was the first thought in John
Fairfield's mind--"I received your welcome letter on the 14th. I am
delighted that you are coming at last to Kentucky, and I consider that
it is high time you paid Fairfield, which has been the cradle of your
stock for many generations, the compliment of looking at it. We closed
our house in Lexington three weeks ago, and are settled out here now for
the summer, and find it lovelier than ever. My family consists only of
myself and Shelby, my one child, who is now twenty-two years of age. We
are both ready to give you an old-time Kentucky welcome, and Westerly is
ready to receive you at any moment you wish to come."

The rest was merely arrangement for meeting the traveller, all of which
was done away with by his earlier arrival.

"A prim old party, with an exalted idea of the family," commented Philip
mentally. "Well-to-do, apparently, or he wouldn't be having a winter
house in the city. I wonder what the boy Shelby is like. At twenty-two
he should be doing something more profitable than spending an entire
summer out here, I should say."

The questions faded into the general content of his mind at the glimpse
of another stately old pillared homestead, white and deep down its
avenue of locusts. At length he stopped his horse to wait for a ragged
negro trudging cheerfully down the road.

"Do you know a place around here called Fairfield?" he asked.

"Yessah. I does that, sah. It's that ar' place right hyeh, sah, by yo'
hoss. That ar's Fahfiel'. Shall I open the gate fo' you, boss?" and
Philip turned to see a hingeless ruin of boards held together by the
persuasion of rusty wire.

"The home of my fathers looks down in the mouth," he reflected aloud.

The old negro's eyes, gleaming from under shaggy sheds of eyebrows,
watched him, and he caught the words.

"Is you a Fahfiel', boss?" he asked eagerly. "Is you my young Marse?" He
jumped at the conclusion promptly. "You favors de fam'ly mightily, sah.
I heard you was comin'"; the rag of a hat went off and he bowed low.
"Hit's cert'nly good news fo' Fahfiel', Marse Philip, hit's mighty