came to see her, and Dr. Gilmer, when illness called him in that direction, always drew rein at her gate.  Ludwell Cary was out of the county, and Fairfax Cary never rode that way.  Unity came whenever it was possible, and thrice, between July and October, Deb and Miranda and a horsehair trunk arrived for a blissful week.  To Deb they were unshadowed days.  The log house, the pine wood and singing stream, an owl that hooted each night, a row of tiger lilies and a thicket of blackberries, Jacqueline to tell her stories, Mammy Chloe and Hannah, the new brother who came home every evening riding a great bay horse and kissing Jacqueline beneath the mimosa tree, the brother who showed her twenty unguessed treasures and gave her the Arabian Nights,—­Deb thought the week on the Three-Notched Road a piece out of the book, and wept when she must go back to Fontenoy.

But Colonel Churchill and Major Edward never came, never wrote, never sent messages to Jacqueline, never, she forced Unity to tell her, mentioned her name or would hear it mentioned at Fontenoy.  Only Aunt Nancy, lying always in the chamber, her key-basket beside her on the white counterpane, talked of her when she chose.  “But she talks as though you were dead,” acknowledged Unity; then, “Oh, Jacqueline, it must all come right some day!  And as for him, he’s talked of more and more,—­everywhere one goes, one hears his name!  He’s head and front of his party here.  Oh, what a party!  Mrs. Adams writes that at Washington they eat soup with their fingers and still think Ca Ira the latest song!  Cannot you convert him?  They say the Mammoth’s jealous, and that your husband and Colonel Burr correspond in cipher.  Is that so?”

“I don’t know,” said Jacqueline.  “I shall not try to convert him.  I would have a man loyal to his beliefs—­so would you, Unity!  Suppose yourself of another party—­would you change Fairfax Cary?  You would wish him to stay always the Federalist that he is!  So with me.  I love my great Republican.”

“I love you,” said Unity.  “Kiss me.  Now, when do you go to Richmond?”

“Next month.  Oh, Unity, if Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward would but make friends before we go!”

Unity, stopping for an hour at Cousin Jane Selden’s, remarked to that lady, “Ah, she is happy!  She does not know and she does not care what is said of Lewis Rand.  They say dreadful things.  The last Gazette—­”

“She doesn’t hear a Federalist upon the subject,” replied Cousin Jane.  “The last Gazette!  Pooh! who believes what a Federalist paper says of a Republican, or a Republican paper says of a Federalist?  Most men and all newspapers are liars.”

“It says that he is a Buonaparte ready to break the shell.”

“Buonaparte’s a great man, my dear.”

“And that the Mammoth’s alarmed—­”

“Like the hen that hatched the eaglet—­”

“And that Lewis Rand’s no more Republican at heart than he is Federalist.  He’s just for Lewis Rand.”