Shall we say that this could not have been?  Shall we say that Art may not be born in a land so young?  Shall we say that Art may not deal with things uncatalogued, and dare not treat of unaccepted things?  Nay, rather let us say that Art, being thought, has this divine right of elective birth.  For out of tortures Art had here won the deep imprimatur.

Edward Franklin, a light-hearted man, rode homeward happily.  The past lay correlated, and for the future there were no longer any wonderings.  His dream, devoutly sought, had given peace.

[*]Before his twenty-ninth year Edward Franklin’s hair had always been a dark reddish brown.  When he returned from a certain journey it was noticed that upon his temple there was a lock of snowy whiteness.  Shon-to, a Cheyenne Indian, once noticed this and said to Franklin:  “You have slept upon the Dreaming Hill, and a finger has touched you!  Among my people there was a man who had a spot of white in his hair, and his father had this spot, and his son after him.  These men were thought to have been touched by the finger of a dream many years ago.  These men could see in the dark.”  The Indian said this confidently.

CHAPTER XXXVI

AT THE GATEWAY

In a certain old Southern city there stands, as there has stood for many generations, and will no doubt endure for many more, a lofty mansion whose architecture dates back to a distant day.  Wide and spacious, with lofty stories, with deep wings and many narrow windows, it rests far back among the ancient oaks, a stately memorial of a day when gentlemen demanded privacy and could afford it.  From the iron pillars of the great gateway the white front of the house may barely be seen through avenues made by the trunks of the primeval grove.  The tall white columns, reaching from gallery floor to roof without pause for the second lofty floor, give dignity to this old-time abode, which comports well with the untrimmed patriarchal oaks.  Under these trees there lies, even today, a deep blue-grass turf which never, from the time of Boone till now, has known the touch of ploughshare or the tool of any cultivation.

It was the boast of this old family that it could afford to own a portion of the earth and own it as it came from the hand of Nature.  Uncaught by the whirl of things, undisturbed essentially even by the tide of the civil war, this branch of an old Southern family had lived on in station unaffected, though with fortune perhaps impaired as had been those of many Southern families, including all the Beauchamp line.