News came that a minister had preached a sermon upon my devotion to my master and exhorted his hearers to be thus faithful unto their Master, the Lord. This was brought to me by none other than Old Miss herself. I was able to sit with a book upon my lap, and out of respect for her prejudice, I put the volume down as she entered the room, but she bade me keep it. And when she had told me what the preacher said, she added: "You may read all the books you like, for we know now that you cannot be poisoned by them. It was noble of you, Dan."  
"Please don't talk that way," I pleaded, my heart smiting me.
 
"Yes, I will. You tried to throw yourself into my son's place to save him, and I can't say too much in your favor. And you will reap your reward when the time comes. 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant,' can be said of you."
 
Old Master came in while she was sitting there. He appeared to be pleased with the attention she showed[Pg 194] me, or his pleasure might have proceeded from his discovery that her temper was improved. "You'll be all right now pretty soon," he said. "I don't believe that I'd read too much. It isn't well to strain your mind. Has your young master told you that he is preparing himself for examination? He is nearly ready, and will be by the time court meets next week. He's afraid that he won't get through without a bobble, but I think he'll go through like a flash. He has decided to enter old Judge Bruce's office. The old fellow doesn't know much but he is a good palaverer and has a pretty fair practice. He never was a real judge, you know—was a candidate once and came off with the title but missed the office."
 
As Old Master became warmer toward me, Old Miss grew cooler; her countenance while she talked had been kindly, but now it was veiled with a frown. The prospect of seeing Young Master established as a lawyer lifted my spirits, but the sight of his mother's displeasure toward me threw them down. Old Master observed the change in the atmosphere. "Madam," said he, "I have been thinking that we need a new carpet for the parlor."
 
"Indeed," she replied, bowing with a mocking grace, "I am delighted to credit your eye-sight with a[Pg 195] sudden improvement. I have spoken of the condition of that carpet until I am tired of it. It's the talk of the neighborhood, I'm sure. Mrs. Ramsey turned up her nose at it the other day, and I couldn't help thinking that it was a pretty pass indeed to be humiliated in my own house by such a thing as she is. And it was no longer ago than last fall that her husband had to sell an old negro woman that had been in the family all her life."
 
"Huh," grunted the old man, winking slyly at me. "Did she turn up her nose very high?" He grabbed out a red handkerchief, snorted into it and sat looking at her with the water of an old mischief standing in his eyes.
 
"General, don't laugh at me. I am the last person in this world that you should laugh at. Don't you do it!"
 
"But, madam, you are the first person I should laugh with."
 
"I don't see how you can laugh at anybody after what we have gone through with lately, blood spattered on our door-sill; but I actually believe that you have been gayer since that awful event." With that remark she flounced out of the room, and the old man sat there, looking out into the blue space of the [Pg 196]speckless day, silent and absorbed. After a time he turned his old eyes slowly upon me.
 
"The youth whose promise in life embraces the prospect of a broad scope should be taught that at the end of it all—this alluring rain-bow—lies disappointment. Sometimes when I have seen my men in the field, with no thought of the morrow and with never a worry except some trifling physical ill, I have wished that I was one of them. I started out wrong," he went on, shaking his head slowly up and down. "Horses can be called back from a false spurt in the race, and another start taken, but men must go on. Dan, I have stood by and seen you trying to educate yourself, and I have said nothing, although I know that education is often the sensitizing of a nerve that leads to misery. To be a gentleman means to possess a large ability to feel, and to feel is to worry, to brood and to suffer. Men of the North and gentlemen of the South, the phrase has gone forth. Our old Virginia blood is gentle, in society; but alone, it is hot with the lingering fire of the cavalier. Do you know what I am saying?" he asked, deepening the wrinkles in his brow.
 
"No, sir; I don't know that I do."
 
"I suppose not. I have been beating the devil around an oratorical stump, sir," he said, his scrawny,[Pg 197] red neck stiffening. "I don't know that I understand myself. Is that Bob or Clem coming up the stairs? It's Bob. Glad to see you doing so well," he added, getting up. And standing for a moment, he put his hand on my head. "You are a noble fellow, even if you are a slave and a negro."
 
Going out he met Young Master coming in. The young man saluted; the old man gave him a smile and a kindly nod and passed on. Bob spoke to me; said he was glad to see me improving so fast; he sat down and took up his book. He opened it at random, knowing it so well that any place offered an understandable beginning, but he did not read. He turned his eyes toward me and said: "You remember that about two months ago a gentleman named Potter bought the old Jamison place, over on the pike? Mother and I called on the family. And since then I have been over there a number of times, though I have said nothing about it to even you. All my life I have been gazing about to discover a sweet secret, and I think I've found one. Yes—and her name is Jane." At this he laughed, threw down his book, shoved his chair back and put his feet on the table. "The name is well enough, no doubt, but in this part of the country we usually associate it with a black wench, you know; and I was impudent[Pg 198] enough to ask Mrs. Potter why she didn't call her Jenny, but she shut me up with, 'she was named for my mother and it is an honorable name, I'm sure.' And it is, too—it takes on bright colors as I associate it with her. But I never thought that I could be smitten with a girl named Jane. It struck me that they had nick-n............