“All right,” laughed Chad, “then I’ll take that drink.”  And together they drank.

Thus, Chadwick Buford, gentleman, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, came back to his own:  and what that own, at that day and in that land, was!

It was the rose of Virginia, springing, in full bloom, from new and richer soil—­a rose of a deeper scarlet and a stronger stem:  and the big village where the old University reared its noble front was the very heart of that rose.  There were the proudest families, the stateliest homes, the broadest culture, the most gracious hospitality, the gentlest courtesies, the finest chivalry, that the State has ever known.  There lived the political idols; there, under the low sky, rose the memorial shaft to Clay.  There had lived beaux and belles, memories of whom hang still about the town, people it with phantom shapes, and give an individual or a family here and there a subtle distinction to-day.  There the grasp of Calvinism was most lax.  There were the dance, the ready sideboard, the card table, the love of the horse and the dog, and but little passion for the game-cock.  There were as manly virtues, as manly vices, as the world has ever known.  And there, love was as far from lust as heaven from hell.

It was on the threshold of this life that Chad stood.  Kentucky had given birth to the man who was to uphold the Union—­birth to the man who would seek to shatter it.  Fate had given Chad the early life of one, and like blood with the other; and, curiously enough, in his own short life, he already epitomized the social development of the nation, from its birth in a log cabin to its swift maturity behind the columns of a Greek portico.  Against the uncounted generations of gentlepeople that ran behind him to sunny England, how little could the short sleep of three in the hills count!  It may take three generations to make a gentleman, but one is enough, if the blood be there, the heart be right, and the brain and hand come early under discipline.

It was to General Dean that the Major told Chad’s story first.  The two old friends silently grasped hands, and the cloud between them passed like mist.

“Bring him over to dinner on Saturday, Cal—­you and Miss Lucy, won’t you?  Some people are coming out from town.”  In making amends, there was no half-way with General Dean.

“I will,” said the Major, “gladly.”

The cool of the coming autumn was already in the air that Saturday when Miss Lucy and the Major and Chad, in the old carriage, with old Tom as driver and the pickaninny behind, started for General Dean’s.  The Major was beautiful to behold, in his flowered waistcoat, his ruffled shirt, white trousers strapped beneath his highly polished, high-heeled boots, high hat and frock coat, with only the lowest button fastened, in order to give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just as that, too, was unbuttoned at the top that the ruffles might peep out upon the world.  Chad’s