“I believe so.  I am going to bring Mr. Laine down for some hoe-cakes and buttermilk after Christmas, and you might tell him some of the stories you used to tell us when we were children.  He lives in New York, and—­”

“He do!  I hope he got himself petrified on the way down, for they tell me ’tis a den of promiscuity, and all the nations of the earth done took their seats in it.  I knowed a woman who lived there once.  She near ’bout work herself to death, and she say she couldn’t have stood it if it hadn’t been for the hopes of a glorious immorality what was awaitin’ her when she died—­” And Mammy Malaprop’s hands waved cheerfully until the sleigh was lost to sight.

From the public road skirting the Elmwood land the private one, tree-bordered by century-old elms, leading to the terraced lawn, wound for some three-quarters of a mile, and as they approached the house Laine saw it was architecturally of a type unseen before.  The central building, broad, two stories high, with sloping roof and deep-pillared portico, by itself would not have been unusual; but the slightly semi-circular corridors connecting it with the two wings gave it a grace and beauty seldom found in the straight lines of the period in which it had been built, and the effect was impressive.  At the foot of the terrace a little colored boy was blowing ardently a little trumpet, giving shrill greeting to the stranger guest, and as they came closer he took off his hat and held it in his hand.

“All right, Gabriel.”  Claudia nodded to the boy.  “Run on, now, and tell Jeptha to come for the horse.”  She laughed in Laine’s puzzled eyes.  “He’s Mammy Malaprop’s grandson.  He thinks he’s the real Gabriel and it’s his duty to blow.  He sings like an angel, but can’t learn to spell his name.  There they are!” She waved her hand gaily to the group on the porch.

As he saw them Laine thought of Claudia’s arrival in New York, and his face flushed.  The men came down the steps, and a moment later he was presented to Claudia’s mother, gracious, gentle, and of a dignity fine and sweet; to her sister, home for the holidays with her husband and children; to an engineer cousin from the West, and a girl from Philadelphia; and once more his hands were shaken by Colonel Bushrod Ball.  It was a Christmas guest who was being welcomed, not Winthrop Laine alone, and he wondered if he were indeed himself.

More than once he wondered before the day was done.  Under the leadership of the Colonel the men were shown their rooms, by way of the dining-room, for, like Moses, Uncle Bushrod believed inward cheer essential after outdoor chill; and, moreover, the apple toddy must be tested.  It was an old world he was in, but to him a very new one.  The happy stir of Christmas preparations, the coming and going of friends and neighbors, the informality and absence of pretense, the gay chatter and genuine interest, was warm and sweet; and as one who watches a play he wondered at it, and something long thought dead thrilled and throbbed and stirred within him.