nversation of gentlemen
and ladies, I would almost pawn my hope of salvation. There are other
times, and many, when for the feel of a sabre hilt in my hand, for the
command of a brigade, or even a regiment, I would almost offer my blade
for hire--almost but not quite.

"I must, however, content myself with my experiment; my wolf-cub.

"You write of my kindness to him, but my dear General, it is the other
way about. It is he who has made my hermitage endurable, and filled in
the empty spaces of my life. My fantastic idea of making him the
American who starts the pioneer and ends the modern, begins to assume
the colour of plausibility.

"I now look forward with something like dread to the time when he must
go out into a wider world. For then I cannot follow him. I shall have
reached the end of my tutorship. I do not think I can then endure this
place without him--but there are others as secluded.

"But my dear General, the very cordial tone of your letters emboldens me
to ask a favour (and it is a large one), in this connection. When he has
finished his course at college I should like to have him read law in
Louisville. That will take him into a new phase of the development I
have planned. He will need strong counsel and true friends there, for he
will still be the pioneer with the rough bark on him, coming into a land
of culture, and, though he will never confess it, he will feel the sting
of class distinctions and financial contrasts.

"There he will see what rapid transitions have left of the old South,
and despite the many changes, there still survives much of its spirit.
Its fragrant bouquet, its fine traditions, are not yet gone. God
willing, I hope he will even go further than that, and later know the
national phases as well as the sectional--but that, of course, lies on
the knees of the gods."

* * * * *

General Prince laid down the letter and sat gazing thoughtfully at the
scabbarded sabre on the wall. Then he rose from his chair and went
along the corridors to a suite legended, "Wallifarro, Banks and
Wallifarro." The General paused to smile, for the last name had been
freshly lettered there, and he knew that it meant a hope fulfilled to
his old friend the Colonel. His son's name was on the door, and his son
was in the firm. But it was to the private office of Colonel Tom that he
went, and the Colonel shoved back a volume of decisions to smile his
welcome.

"Tom," began t