was grammatically correct. The correctness of her language for one so small made it sound so quaint that Uncle Jack had her always talking. Her earnestness and intensity only added to her originality.

Pete was a little darky on the farm whose chief business was to entertain Little Sister when everything else failed. His repertoire consisted of all the funny tricks of a monkey. But his two-star performances were racking like Deacon Jones' old clay-bank pacer and playing 'possum. Little Sister never tired of having Pete do these two things. They were very comical. Everybody knew Deacon Jones, with his angular, sedate, solemn way of riding, and the double-shuffling, twisting, cork-screw gait of the old pacer. The ludicrous motions of the pacer had struck Pete early in life, and he had soon learned to get down on all-fours and make Deacon Jones's horse ashamed of himself. The imitation was so perfect that Ned and Uncle Jack used to call in their friends to see the show, which consisted of Pete's doing the racking act, while Little Sister, astraddle of his back, with one hand in his shirt collar, and the other wielding a hickory switch, played the Deacon.

One evening, before company, Pete had paced around so many times that he was leg-weary. Little Sister, astride his back, whacked him in the flanks vigorously and exclaimed: "Come, pace along there, damn you, or I'll put a head on you!"

The company nearly fell out of their chairs, while Thesis blushed and Ned stammered an apology. Then he remembered that only a few days before he had heard his grandsire, the swearing old Indian Fighter, make the same remark to Pete for being slow about bringing his shaving water; and he knew that if Little Sister was proud of anyone, it was of her great grandsire, who fought valiantly with "Stonewall" in the Valley.

Ned and Thesis gave the old gentleman a talk, and begged him to be careful of his oaths in the presence of Little Sister: but when he had heard it, he laughed more than he had laughed for a year, and straightway proceeded to buy her a doll that cost a gold eagle, and was as large, and nearly as beautiful, as Little Sister herself.

The spring that Little Sister was four years old, the General, as was his custom every morning before breakfast, went out to the barn and paddock to see the brood mares and colts. A stately brown mare, ankle-deep in blue grass, stood in the paddock nearest the house, under a great maple tree, its falling branches almost concealing her. She turned every now and then in a nervous, unhappy way, and, going up to the brown, new-born weakling of a colt lying in the blue grass, and which seemed unable to rise, she lowered her shapely head till her nozzle caressed it and then she whinnied softly. Something was very badly wrong and she knew it.

The old General had been looking on for quite a while, frowning. When the General was sorry for anything he expressed his sympathy by a nervous strutting and swearing. When he was angry or fighting—as his battles in Virginia proved—he was as silent as a stone wall, and as staunch. Then he never swore.

"The damned little thing's deformed, Jim," he said to the negro stable boy who was standing near. "Poor old Betty," and he rubbed his favorite saddle mare's nose, "she is distressed."

There was the sound of fox hunters coming up the pike. The hounds passed first, in a trot, nosing. Then the two hunters rode up to the rock fence where the General stood. One of them rode a docked hunter with ungainly long head and sloping rump and shoulders. Both horse and rider were unmistakably English; the man was middle-aged, portly, and handsome. The other rider was a young man riding a Tennessee saddle horse.

"Good morning, General," said the Englishman, saluting, "can't you join us to-day? Thought we'd exercise the pack a bit. The blooming old chap was out last night—over in the hills after a negro's chickens—and we'll take up his trail and have a little chase. Fawncy striking him in that stretch of Stone's River bottom—aw—but we'll have a chase!"

"No—no—Goff," said the old General, impatiently, "I'm pestered to death with this little colt. I don't know what to do with it."

The hunter glanced over into the paddock.

"O that old ambling saddle mare of yours! Aw—you know what we did with them in England—two centuries ago—anything with that Andalusian jennet blood in it—that old pacing gait—killed 'em—aw! exterminated 'em, sir! Always told you so. They're fit for nothing but for old women to ride to church on."

The younger man broke out into a boisterous laugh. His face was round and weak, his mouth wide, his eyes insincere, and his laugh was affected and betook of his eyes.

"The Colonel's right, Grandpa. Tell Jim to kill it an' come on with us."

The old General glanced at him quickly. "Braxton Bragg Rutherford, my son, when you enter West Point you will find it a rule there that very young officers do not try to impress their views on their superiors until asked."

"Colonel Goff, suh," he said, turning to the Englishman, "that old mare has carried me for fifteen years and never stumped her toe. Her dam carried me through the Valley campaign with Stonewall Jackson. She helped us chase Banks and Fremont out of God's country. She saved my life once because she could outfoot Yankee cavalry. You were with me and know it. I owe the whole family a debt I can never repay, and suh, I'll be damned if I don't hate to kill her colt."

Colonel Goff looked over the fence at the colt lying in the grass. Then he said to the negro, aside: "Pull out its legs, my man—there—that will do. Hold them up!"

The legs were knuckled over at the ankles, deformed evidently. When it tried to stand it came down limply in a heap.

Colonel Goff turned and, beckoning to the negro, whispered: "Jim, take it into the stall there and destroy it without letting the General know." Then he added in a louder tone, "Come, General, we'll wait till you get your cup of coffee and join us."

But the General shook his head. Rough he was and used to war and death, yet this was old Betty's colt. Goff, knowing his stubbornness, saluted, and rode on after the hounds.

The old man stood thinking. He examined the deformed limbs again. Very sternly he looked the colt over. Very sternly he reached his conclusion, and once reached it was irrevocable. Jim, knowing, put in apologetically:

"Giner'l, hit'll never walk, we'll hafter kill it."

"I don't want to see it done, Jim. I'll go in. Po' ole Betty—that she should be played off on like that!" He stroked the mare's neck with a kindly pat, and went in.

Breakfast was ready for him. He sat down, abstracted, worried. Uncle Jack, his grandson, eighteen, slender, and slightly lame, and who didn't love to talk of the war, nor the thought of going to West Point, and who wanted always to study about trees and a better way of farming, sat next to Little Sister. The General told him of his misfortune. "It is a great disappointment to me, suh, old Betty, my favorite saddle mare—I've ridden her for fifteen years—the best mare in Tennessee, by gad, suh, the very best!

"It's weak, puny and no-count, Jack," he went on as he tested