position, his men shoutin' for him all the while."

"Those were stirring days for you, Claggett," said Townsend, whose blood began to answer to the man's enthusiasm.

"Yes, Mr. Townsend, they were so; but you mustn't let me impose on you with my war stories. My present wife, suh,—a young lady I courted in King William, about the age of my oldest daughter,—she won't have me open my mouth 'bout war stories at our house. Says I tire everybody out with my old chestnuts, suh; an' perhaps I do. The ladies like to do a good deal of the talkin' themselves, I've noticed, Mr. Townsend."

With a subdued sigh, Claggett subsided into silence, but not for long. The names of Stuart and Mosby and their officers were ever upon his lips, interspersed with anecdote and gossip concerning the country people whose dwellings were only occasionally seen from the road. Here and there, in the distance, chimneys behind clumps of trees were pointed out as belonging to old inhabitants who had held on to their homes through storm and stress of ill-fortune since the war.

"Since you are from the Nawth, I would like to tell you, suh, that nobody who is anybody among our gentry ever lived in a village. They lived to themselves, suh, an' the further away from each other the better. If you had the time, suh, an' were acquainted with the families, I could show you some places that would surprise you. An' the ladies an' gentlemen, Mr. Townsend, of our best old stock are as fine people as any on God's earth, I reckon. Pity you ain't acquainted, as I said. It would give me pleasure to take you inside some of the gates of our foremost residents."

Vance noted with amusement that Claggett did not assume to be on a social plane with the people he extolled, but had accepted the tradition of their superiority as part of the Virginian creed. Laughing, he joined in the honest fellow's regret at his ineligibility to take rank as a guest in the neighborhood.

"Though it seems to me, Claggett, now that I think of it, I have a kinsman somewhere hereabout. Do you know anything of a family of Carlyles—Colonel Carlyle, I believe they call him?"

Claggett's manner underwent instant transformation.

"Colonel Guy Carlyle, of the Hall, suh?" he exclaimed, eagerly. "That's in the next county, a matter of twenty or thirty miles from here. I had the luck to serve under the Colonel, Mr. Townsend, and he'd know me if you spoke my name. You'll be goin' that way, suh? We'll strike north from Glenwood, and get there by supper-time."

"Hold on, Claggett, you'll be pouring out my coffee and asking me to take more of the Colonel's waffles, presently. Colonel Carlyle married my mother's cousin, but I fancy would not recognize my name as quickly as yours. I have certainly no grounds for venturing to offer myself as an inmate of his house."

"Beg your pardon, suh, but the Colonel'd never get over a relation ridin' so near the Hall an' not stoppin' there to sleep," persisted Claggett. "It's a thing nobody ever heard of, down this way."

"I shall have to brave tradition, then," answered Vance, indifferently.

"It's a fine old place, suh. House built by the Hessian prisoners in the Revolution, and splendid furniture. They do say there's one mirror in the big saloon that covers fourteen foot of wall, Mr. Townsend. Yanks bivouacked in that room, too, but didn't so much as crack it. An' chandeliers, all over danglers like earrings, suh. For all they ain't got such a sight o' money as they had, Miss Eve, she's got a real knack at fixin' up, an' she's travelled Nawth, an' got all the new ideas. You must 'a' met Miss Eve when she was Nawth, Mr. Townsend. Why, suh, she's the beauty o' three counties; nobody could pass her in a crowd, or out of it."

"I have met Miss Carlyle, Claggett," Vance said, growing uncomfortable at the recollection. "But only once, and for a moment. As you say, she is a beautiful young woman."

"Then you will stop at the Hall, suh?" pleaded his guide.

"No," said Vance, briefly. "We will go on to Glenwood, and sleep there at the inn. To-morrow, you shall show me as much of the country as I have enjoyed to-day, but I am here for travelling, and not to cultivate acquaintance, understand."

"Up yonder, on the hill-top, suh," observed Mr. Claggett, ignoring rebuke, "when we git through this little village we're comin' to (I was in a red-hot skirmish once, right in the middle of the street, ahead, suh), is a tree we call the Big Poplar. It marks the junction of three counties, an' 'twas there George Washin'ton slept, when he was on his surveyin' tour as a boy, suh—you've heard of General Washin'ton up your way, Mr. Townsend?"

"Yes, confound you," said Vance, laughing at his sly look.

"General Lee halted at that point to look at the country round, on his way to Gettysburg. A great friend of Colonel Carlyle was the General, suh; you'll see a fine picture of the General in the dinin'-room at the Hall. Colonel Carlyle lost two brothers followin' Lee into battle, suh, but we call that an honor down here. They do say little Miss Eve keeps the old swords and soldier caps of them two uncles in a sort o' altar in her chamber, suh. Heard the news that Miss Eve's engaged to her cousin, Mr. Ralph Corbin, in Wash'n't'n, suh? It's all over the country, I reckon. He's a young archytec', an' doin' well; but down here nobody knows if a young lady's engaged for sure, till the day's set for the weddin'."

At this point Vance interrupted his garrulous guide to suggest that they should seek refreshment for man and beast in the hamlet close at hand; and the diversion this created turned Claggett from the apparently inexhaustible subject of the Carlyles.

They rode onward, the genial sun, as it mounted higher in the heaven, serving to irradiate, not overheat, the beautiful earth.

From this point the road went creeping up, by gentle degrees, to the summit of the mountain, beyond which Shenandoah cleft their way in twain. Traversing Ashby's Gap, the efflorescence of the woods, the music of many waters, the balm of purest air, confirmed Vance's satisfaction in his choice of an expedition. Descending the steep grade to the river, they crossed the classic stream upon the most primitive of flat ferry-boats, and on the further side passed almost at once into a rich, agricultural country, upon a well-kept turnpike, where the horses trotted rapidly ahead.

Claggett, strange to say, did not resume allusions to the Carlyle family; but upon reaching a certain cross-road, he ventured an appealing glance at his employer.

"Turn to the right here, to get a short cut to Carlyle Hall, suh."

"Where does the left road take us?" asked Vance, shortly.

"You kin git to Glenwood that way, Mr. Townsend. But it's a roundabout way, an' a new road, an' a pretty bad one, an' it's just in the opposite direction from Colonel—"

Vance answered him by riding to the left.

A new road, with a vengeance, and one apparently bottomless, the horses at every step plunging deeper into clinging, red-clay mud; but the obstinacy of Vance kept him riding silently ahead, and the trooper, with a quizzical look upon his weather-beaten face, followed. Miles, traversed in this fashion, brought them into the vicinity of a small gathering of houses, at sight of which Vance spoke for the first time in an hour.

"Claggett."

"Yes, suh?" This, deferentially.

"If I ever go back of my own free will over that infernal piece of road"—he paused for a sufficiently strong expression.

"Yes, suh?" said