ks. It was the Southern style and aspect of the place that
pleased the eyes of the Talbots.

In this pleasant, private boarding house they engaged rooms, including
a study for Major Talbot, who was adding the finishing chapters to his
book, "Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Alabama Army, Bench, and
Bar."

Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The present day had little
interest or excellence in his eyes. His mind lived in that period
before the Civil War, when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of
fine cotton land and the slaves to till them; when the family mansion
was the scene of princely hospitality, and drew its guests from the
aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had brought all its
old pride and scruples of honour, an antiquated and punctilious
politeness, and (you would think) its wardrobe.

Such clothes were surely never made within fifty years. The major was
tall, but whenever he made that wonderful, archaic genuflexion he
called a bow, the corners of his frock coat swept the floor. That
garment was a surprise even to Washington, which has long ago ceased
to shy at the frocks and broadbrimmed hats of Southern congressmen.
One of the boarders christened it a "Father Hubbard," and it certainly
was high in the waist and full in the skirt.

But the major, with all his queer clothes, his immense area of
plaited, ravelling shirt bosom, and the little black string tie with
the bow always slipping on one side, both was smiled at and liked in
Mrs. Vardeman' s select boarding house. Some of the young department
clerks would often "string him," as they called it, getting him
started upon the subject dearest to him--the traditions and history of
his beloved Southland. During his talks he would quote freely from the
"Anecdotes and Reminiscences." But they were very careful not to let
him see their designs, for in spite of his sixty-eight years, he could
make the boldest of them uncomfortable under the steady regard of his
piercing gray eyes.

Miss Lydia was a plump, little old maid of thirty-five, with smoothly
drawn, tightly twisted hair that made her look still older. Old
fashioned, too, she was; but ante-bellum glory did not radiate from
her as it did from the major. She possessed a thrifty common sense;
and it was she who handled the finances of the family, and met all
comers when there were bills to pay. The major regarded board bills
and wash bills as contemptible nuisances. They kept coming in