Nicholas ran his hand through his hair with a habitual gesture.  He was idly watching the light of Dudley’s cigar and noting the quality by the aroma.  He could not afford cigars himself, and he wondered how Dudley managed to do so.

“We are a people without a present,” he returned inattentively.  “You’ve heard, I take it, that an old elm has gone near the court-house.”

“My mother told me.  I believe she knows every brick that used to be and is not.  I’m trying to get her away with me, but she won’t come.”

“Sally Burwell was telling me,” said Tom, a dawning interest in his face, “she had tried to persuade her.”

“Yes, we tried and failed.  By the way, is it true that Sally’s engaged to Jack Wyth?  I hear it at every turn.”

“I—­I shouldn’t be surprised,” gasped Tom painfully.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” protested Nicholas.

“He isn’t much good, eh?”

“Why, he’s a brick,” said Nicholas.

“He’s a cad,” said Tom.

Dudley laughed and blew a cloud of smoke in the air.

“Well, she’s a daisy herself, and as good as gold.  She’s the kind of woman to flirt herself hoarse and then settle down into dove-like domesticity.  But what about Eugie?  Is she really grown up?  My mother declares she’s splendid.”

Nicholas was silent.

“Oh, she’s handsome enough,” Tom carelessly replied.

“But not like Sally, eh?”

“Oh, no! not like Sally.”

Dudley tossed the stump of his cigar through the open window, lit a cigarette, and changed the subject.  He talked easily, relating several laughable stories, referring occasionally to himself and his success, illustrating his remarks by his experience at the bar, giving finally the exclamation of a fellow-lawyer at the close of an argument he had made:  “You may be a muff of a jurist, Webb,” he had cried, “but, by George! you’re a devil of an advocate!”

He was, withal, so affable, so confident, so thoroughly a good fellow, that an hour passed before Nicholas remembered he had looked in only for a moment.

When he rose to go, Dudley gripped his hand again, slapped him on the shoulder, declared him to be a “first-rate old chap,” and ended by pressing him to drop in on him when he ran up to Richmond.

Nicholas gave back the friendly grasp and pledged himself to the “dropping in.”  He resistingly succumbed before the inherent jovial charm.

The afternoon being Saturday, he left town earlier than usual and spent a couple of hours with his father in the fields.  The peanuts were being harvested.  Amos Burr, with a peanut “share” attached to the plough, was separating the yellowed plants from the ripe nuts underground, and Nicholas, lifting the roots upon a pitchfork, shook them free from earth and threw them over the pointed staves which were the final supports of the “shocks.”  A negro hand went before him, driving the sticks into the sandy soil.