of the hall before a closed door stood a very large black man who was very old and bent and who had tufts of white wool of the aspect of a sheep upon his head.  He was attired in a long gray coat of a military cut that I afterwards learned was of the late Confederacy, and I soon had much affection for him because of his reminiscences of that war and also because of his affection for my noble father, to whom he had told the same stories’ in his early youth.

My Uncle, the General Robert, had not paused to present to me any of the gentlemen with whom he had exchanged jovial greetings, but he stopped beside the old black man and said: 

“This is Henry’s boy, Robert, Cato.  Fine young chap, eh?”

“Yes, sir, Mas’ Robert,” answered Cato as he peered into my face with the nicest affection in his black eyes set in large spaces of white.

“Like Henry, isn’t he?”

“’Fore God, yes, sir!”

“Look after him, Cato.  He’ll be about considerable.”

“Dat I will—­Mas’ Henry’s boy!”

“No lobbying dimity chasing him, Cato!”

“Yes, sir; I understands, sir.”

“Is the Governor ready for me?”

“Yes, sir, you’s to go right in, Mas’ Robert.  Mr. Clendenning is with him jest now, but he’ll be out in a turkey’s call of time.  Jest walk in, sir, and you, the young marster,” and with a bow that almost allowed that the tails of the long gray coat swept the floor, the old black man opened the door and motioned us into the room of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth.

It has been given to me in the very short time of my life to be often in the home of the President of France, to be presented at the court of England with my father, to the Czar at Petrograd and to the old Franz Joseph, as well as to the beloved Albert and Elizabeth in Brussels, where I did go often to play with the young princess, and I do know very well how to manage skirts whether very tight, or very wide with ruffles, in the case of such presentations, but my heart rose very high up and beat so near to the roots of my tongue that it was impossible for me to speak as I was presented, in the traveling tweeds of a young man of American fashion, to the very wonderful and beautiful and fearful Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner of the State of Harpeth.

“Here’s my boy, Governor,” was all the introduction my Uncle, the General Robert, administered to me, and I stood and looked into the face of him whom afterwards I discovered to be the greatest gentleman in the world, with my heart beating in my throat and yet astir under my woman’s breast in the place it had always before resided.

CHAPTER VI

“WE BOTH NEED YOU”