Yes, and Jerry's got your ticket. He'll go down with your things, check
them all and start off on the ticket himself. Then, as soon as you--"

"But will they allow a slave to do so?"

"With my pass, yes; 'Let my black man, Jerry--'"

The garden took the pair into its depths a moment too soon for the old
soldier to see them as he came out upon the side veranda with a cloud on
his brow that showed he had heard his nephew's laugh.

II

CARRIAGE COMPANY

Bareheaded the uncle crossed the fountained court, sat down at a table
and read again. In the veranda a negro, his own slave, hired to this
hotel, held up an elegant military cap, struck an inquiring attitude,
and called softly, "Gen'al?"

"Bring it with the coffee."

But the negro instantly brought it without the coffee and placed it on
the table with a delicate flourish, shuffled a step back and bowed low:

"Coffee black, Gen'al, o' co'se?"

"Black as your grandmother."

The servant tittered: "Yas, suh, so whah it flop up-siden de cup it
leave a lemon-yalleh sta-ain."

He capered away, leaving the General to the little steamboats and to a
blessed ignorance of times to be when at "Vicksburg and the Bends" this
same waiter would bring his coffee made of corn-meal bran and muddy
water, with which to wash down scant snacks of mule meat. The listless
eye still roamed the arid page as the slave returned with the fragrant
pot and cup, but now the sitter laid it by, lighted a cigar and mused:--

In this impending war the South would win, of course--oh, God is just!
But this muser could only expect to fall at the front. Then his large
estate, all lands and slaves, five hundred souls--who would inherit that
and hold it together? Held together it must be! Any partition of it
would break no end of sacredly humble household and family ties and
work spiritual havoc incalculable. There must be but one heir. Who?
Hilary's mother had been in heaven these many years, the mother of
Adolphe eighteen months; months quite enough to show the lone brother
how vast a loss is the absence of the right mistress from such very
human interests as those of a great plantation. Not only must there be
but one heir, but he _must have the right wife_.

The schemer sipped. So it was Anna for Hilary if he could bring it
about. So, too, it must be Hilary for his adjutant-general, to keep him
near enough to teach him the management of the fortune coming to him if
he, Hilary, would onl