milk.

Such is Jean François' great highway. All the morning he spent telling us of le long du trimard, to use an expression frequently upon his lips. He told us of the men of the road, their dreams, their strange and adventurous lives. Often he spoke simply of amazing and unlooked-for deeds of heroism. He sang of nymphs, of dryads with wondrous beauty. He talked of marvelous, strong-limbed satyrs, of gentle fauns stealing through the wild-wood. In whispered words, with bated breath, as if he told of sacred secret things, he described to us the days of his brother, the great god Pan.

"There are those," said he, "who say that Pan is dead. They are but blind. Some day, if life is kind, I shall take you to him. When once you hear the immortal music of his oaten pipes you will have discovered the passionate note which will lead you, lead you down the road, over the hills into the far away where youth and the greater love abide, as was meant from the beginning of the world.... Long live the great Pan," cried he.

Then, as if suddenly coming back to this as from another world, his eyes lost their preternatural expression and became wistful and kind and merry.

"And what do you think of it all, my children?" said he, with a sweep of his hand, which was meant to include all the splendid things he had been telling us. It never seemed to occur to him that he doubtless spoke of much which was utter mystery so far as we were concerned. But that was characteristic of the man. He talked to Nance and me in very much the same manner in which he spoke with Doctor Longstreet.

Nance's reply came as a surprise to me. I was glad her Aunt Barbara was not numbered among those present. With slow and serious mien she said:

"Some day, Jean François, I shall be a gipsy with you."

"Ah, my little jade," said he, with an obvious note of sympathy and gratitude in his voice, "so you have heard the call of the road?... Yes, there will come a time when we'll go hand in hand down the traffic lands. We'll roam forever and a day, forever and away.... You shall help me cry my wares."

Then, seeing in Nance's face a look which took him at his word, and upon mine questionings bordering upon alarm, he burst into hearty laughter, restoring our poise, and cried:

"You must not take too seriously, my dears, the nonsense of the happy pedler!"

"What of you?" he asked, quickly turning to me. "Have you heard it too—the call of the road? No?"

As for me, I'm distinctly of the town. So, using a phrase kin to his own, I replied:

"Oldmeadow belongs to me," and I launched into a boyish panegyric of my birthplace.

It is a quaint bit of a village, where spectacled old ladies in black lace caps poke case-knives about the roots of rose-bushes, while elderly gentlemen with canes hobble over flag-stone sidewalks to their favorite seats in the spicy, leathery, brown-papery atmosphere of the store. In some features Oldmeadow seems even older than the river, though I am assured by cracker-barrel historians that this is not a fact. It has been here long enough, however, to become a fixed part of the landscape, which is no more likely to change than the course of the Ohio, or the shape of the Kentucky hills away to the south. The older folk are careful not to die until they have faithfully imparted to the younger people all of their old-fashioned courtesy, gentle virtues, assorted prejudices, and cures for mumps, measles, and rheumatism.

"Oldmeadow herself—" I began, but Jean François interrupted.

"Quite right, son. 'She' is the word. She is distinctly an elderly maiden lady with old-time beauty; a sort of adorable shyness; a certain charming primness which sits upon her head like a Sunday bonnet. She takes a friendly interest in the love affairs of the young if duly governed by a proper regard for propriety. Her conventional amusements she defends from the parson with roguish pleasantry. Over the evening coffee she takes a half-frightened delight in mild gossip.... That's your aunt Oldmeadow," concluded Jean François, with a smile.

Oldmeadow rests—I think you will agree with me that "rests" is the word—just high enough to be secure from the June rise, and very timidly peeps, as if she were fully expecting to see some naughty naked little boys in swimming, through the willows over the banks of the most beautiful river in the world. The great, lazy Ohio slowly winds into view from among the hazy hills in the east, lingers for a moment after a manner most friendly, and then, with assumed indifference, drifts away to disappear among other hazy hills in the west.... Do you remember how we used to ask the grown-ups, "Where does the river come from?"... The river is made very human, and the town, which has no railroad to this day, is kept in touch with the outside world by the big, white-collared steamboats which plow their way daily between Louisville and Cincinnati.

When you climb the high banks and get into the village the sidewalks are of large flat stones, with peppergrass and green old moss growing between them and about the roots of the gnarled honey-locusts which have stood for a hundred years along the primitive gutters. The houses are delightfully old-fashioned and quaint. Some are mere plain white cottages far back from the streets, where vines cover the latticed porches. In the lawns circles and crude stars are made for peonies and sweet williams. Some, however, are more pretentious, being built of stone or brick, with occasional pillars, colonial in manner, with wide old arches above the damp, moss-covered slabs of the floor.

"Your village should be very happy," remarked Jean François, after my conclusion. "Does she not have the river to sing to her; the tree-clad hills for shelter; the good blue sky to smile upon her; grave old homes with green sunny gardens to lend dignity; and the laughing loves of youth to keep warm her heart?... There's the village for a road like mine!"

Oldmeadow possesses three points of greater pride: her hospitality, which needs no encomium; the "college," of which more anon; and the Old Mansion of Many Pillars.... It was of this home that Jean François now asked the history. Every child in the village knew it, for, was it not, with its mystery, its ghosts, its inviting splendor, the heart's desire of Nance and me ever since, for us, time began?

It stands in an ample yard, amid old pines, locust trees, and lilac bushes, overlooking the river. It is a great square house of the colonial type, with low wings to the right and left. The windows are large, deep-seated, and many-paned. The enhancing feature, however, is the big, broad portico, the roof of which is supported by noble Corinthian columns, spotted and green with moss and ivy. This house is not only the most elegant, inside and out, in Oldmeadow to-day, but in that time it possessed an atmosphere of aristocratic seclusion, amounting in the minds of the children and negroes to mystery.

Until recent years it had been the property of an old French refugee of the ancient régime. His father had fled from the court of Louis XIV to Louisiana. The son, years later, having gotten into some trouble over a woman, killing his man, which, so far as we are concerned, is another story, came into the river valley of Kentucky and at vast expense built the old mansion as it now stands. To all appearances he had wrought with the expectations of some one sharing the home with him. It was made for happiness, love, and children. At first he was a jolly, gay young fellow, seeking