.

"I owe my son's life to you, Captain Buford," said Mrs. Dean, with
trembling lip, "and you must make our house your home while you are
here. I bring that message to you from Harry and Margaret. I know and
they know now all you have done for us and all you have tried to do."

Chad could hardly speak his thanks. He would be in the Bluegrass only a
few days, he stammered, but he would go out to see them next day. That
night he went to the old inn where the Major had taken him to dinner.
Next day he hired a horse from the livery stable where he had bought
the old brood mare, and early in the afternoon he rode out the broad
turnpike in a nervous tumult of feeling that more than once made him
halt in the road. He wore his uniform, which was new, and made him
uncomfortable--it looked too much like waving a victorious flag in the
face of a beaten enemy--but it was the only stitch of clothes he had,
and that he might not explain.

It was the first of May. Just eight years before, Chad with a burning
heart had watched Richard Hunt gayly dancing with Margaret, while the
dead chieftain, Morgan, gayly fiddled for the merry crowd. Now the sun
shone as it did then, the birds sang, the wind shook the happy leaves
and trembled through the budding heads of bluegrass to show that nature
had known no war and that her mood was never other than of hope and
peace. But there were no fat cattle browsing in the Dean pastures now,
no flocks of Southdown sheep with frisking lambs The worm fences had
lost their riders and were broken down here and there. The gate sagged
on its hinges; the fences around yard and garden and orchard had known
no whitewash for years; the paint on the noble old house was cracked
and peeling, the roof of the barn was sunken in, and the cabins of the
quarters were closed, for the hand of war, though unclinched, still lay
heavy on the home of the Deans. Snowball came to take his horse. He was
respectful, but his white teeth did not flash the welcome Chad once had
known. Another horse stood at the hitching-post and on it was a cavalry
saddle and a rebel army blanket, and Chad did not have to guess whose
it might be. From the porch, Dan shouted and came down to meet him, and
Harry hurried to the door, followed by Mrs. Dean. Margaret was not to
be seen, and Chad was glad--he would have a little more time for
self-control. She did not appear even when they were seated in the
porch until Dan shouted for her toward the gard