emotion, there sped to the gayer
company a subtle wave of expectation and alarm. Miss Lucy was the first
whom it reached. "What is it, brother?" she said quickly. Cousin William
followed, "For God's sake, Cary, what has happened?" Edward spoke from
beside the piano, "Has it come, father?" With his words his hand fell
upon the keys, suddenly and startlingly upon the bass.

The vibrations died away. "Yes, it has come, Edward," said the master.
Holding up his hand for silence, he moved to the middle of the room, and
stood there, beneath the lit candles, the swinging prisms of the
chandelier. Peale's portrait of his father hung upon the wall. The
resemblance was strong between the dead and the living.

"Be quiet, every one," he said now, speaking very quietly himself. "Is
all the household here? Open the window wide, Julius. Let the house
servants come inside. If there are men and women from the quarter on the
porch, tell them to come closer, so that all may hear." Julius opened
the long windows, the negroes came in, Mammy in her turban, Easter and
Chloe the seamstresses, Car'line the cook, the housemaids, the
dining-room boys, the young girls who waited upon the daughters of the
house, Isham the coachman, Shirley the master's body-servant, Edward's
boy Jeames, and the nondescript half dozen who helped the others. The
ruder sort upon the porch, "outdoor" negroes drawn by the music and the
spectacle from the quarter, approached the windows. Together they made a
background, dark and exotic, splashed with bright colour, for the Aryan
stock ranged to the front. The drawing-room was filled. Mr. Corbin Wood
had come noiselessly in from the library, none was missing. Guests,
family, and servants stood motionless. There was that in the bearing of
the master which seemed, in the silence, to detach itself, and to come
toward them like an emanation, cold, pure, and quiet, determined and
imposing. He spoke. "I supposed that you had heard the news. Along the
railroad and in Charlottesville it was known; there were great crowds. I
see it has not reached you. Mr. Lincoln has called for seventy-five
thousand troops with which to procure South Carolina and the Gulf
States' return into the Union. He--the North--demands of Virginia eight
thousand men to be used for this purpose. She will not give them. We
have fought long and patiently for peace; now we fight no more on that
field. Matters have brought me for a few hours to Albemarle. To-morr