too valuable to be transported in the wagon which
was to bring the rest of the library.

"Just a little of the cream of the collection, Cradd," he said as he
unwrapped a small leather-covered volume which Matthew had transported in
the pocket over his heart.

"Just five hundred dollars' worth of cream," whispered Matthew to me, with
a whimsical look at the small and very ancient specimen of Americana. "It
is a good thing that Senator Proctor has only Belle and let her have the
six thousand cash for the Chauvenaise, and Bess wanted your little Royal in
a hurry, though she got a bargain at that. Still the library is really
worth five times what you paid."

"Sh--hush!" I said as I led the way before the parental twins into the old
dining-room. Father hadn't even questioned how he was to have the library
saved for him, and of course Uncle Cradd knew nothing at all about the
matter.

After seating me with the same ceremony he had employed since my arrival
into the family, though with hostility bristling psychologically for my
plebeian intrusion into his traditions of the Craddock ladies, Rufus
appalled me by offering me for the third time since my arrival at Elmnest
roasted ribs of the hog, muffins and coffee. Only my training in the social
customs of a world beyond the ken of Rufus kept me from exclaiming with
protest, but I came to myself to discover that Matthew was devouring huge
slabs of the roasted bones and half a dozen batches of the corn bread in a
manner that was ravenously unconventional. I remembered that the last time
I had seen him at repast, just about forty-eight hours past, he had speared
a croquette of chicken with disdain, and I decided not to apologize for the
meal even in the most subtle way. Also the spectacle of father polishing
off the small bones, when I remembered the efforts of devoted Henri to
tempt his appetite with sophisticated food, filled me with a queer
primitive feeling that made it possible for me to fall upon my series of
the ribs with an ardor which I had thought I was incapable of.

"I call that some food," sighed Matthew, as he regarded the pile of bones
in his plate with the greatest satisfaction in his appeased eyes. I felt
Rufus melt behind me as he passed the muffins again.

"The native food of the Harpeth Valley nourishes specially fine men--and
very beautiful women," answered Uncle Cradd, with a glance of pride, first
at me and then at father in his spare, but muscular, upr