her own life
and that of the stranger who had to-day laughed in the road, it may be
as well to take note of its contents.

The quaint phrasing of the writer may be discarded and only the
substance which concerned her narrative taken into account, for her
sheaf of yellow pages was a door upon the remote reaches of the past,
yet a past which this girl was not to find a thing ended and buried but
rather a ghost that still walked and held a continuing dominion.

In those far-off days when the Crown still governed us there had stood
in Virginia a manor house built of brick brought overseas from England.

In it Colonel John Parish lived as had his father, and in it he died in
those stirring times of a nation's painful birth. He had been old and
stubborn and his emotions were so mixed between conflicting loyalties
that the pain of his hard choice hastened his end. Tradition tells that,
on his deathbed, his emaciated hand clutched at a letter from Washington
himself, but that just at the final moment his eyes turned toward the
portrait of the King which still hung above his mantel shelf, and that
his lips shaped reverent sentiments as he died.

Later that same day his two sons met in the wainscoted room hallowed by
their father's books and filled with his lingering spirit--a library
noted in a land where books were still few enough to distinguish their
owner.

Between them, even in this hour of common bereavement, stood a coolness,
an embarrassment which must be faced when two men, bound by blood, yet
parted by an unconfessed feud, arrive at the parting of their ways.

Though he had been true to every requirement of honour and punctilio,
John the elder had never entirely recovered from the wound he had
suffered when Dorothy Calmer had chosen his younger brother Caleb
instead of himself. He had indeed never quite been able to forgive it.

"So soon as my father has been laid to rest, I purpose to repair to
Mount Vernon," came the thoughtful words of the younger brother as their
interview, which had been studiedly courteous but devoid of warmth
ended, and the elder halted, turning on the threshold to listen.

"There was, as you may recall, a message in General Washington's letter
to my father indicating that an enterprise of moment awaited my
undertaking," went on Caleb. "I should be remiss if I failed of prompt
response."

* * * * *

Kentucky! Until the fever of war with Great Britain had