“They hadn’t a place ter go,” said he, “and I reckoned ’twould give ’em time ter ketch breath, an’ turn around.  I told ’em livin’ in Kaintuck was kinder rough.”

“Mercy!” said Polly Ann, “ter think that they was use’ ter silver spoons, and linen, and niggers ter wait on ’em.  Tom, ye must shoot a turkey, and I’ll do my best to give ’em a good supper.”  Tom rose obediently, and seized his coonskin hat.  She stopped him with a word.

“Tom.”

“Ay?”

“Mayhap—­mayhap Davy would know ’em.  He’s been to Charlestown with the gentry there.”

“Mayhap,” agreed Tom.  “Pore little deevil,” said he, “he’s hed a hard time.”

“He’ll be right again soon,” said Polly Ann.  “He’s been sleepin’ that way, off and on, fer a week.”  Her voice faltered into a note of tenderness as her eyes rested on me.

“I reckon we owe Davy a heap, Polly Ann,” said he.

I was about to interrupt, but Polly Ann’s next remark arrested me.

“Tom,” said she, “he oughter be eddicated.”

“Eddicated!” exclaimed Tom, with a kind of dismay.

“Yes, eddicated,” she repeated.  “He ain’t like you and me.  He’s different.  He oughter be a lawyer, or somethin’.”

Tom reflected.

“Ay,” he answered, “the Colonel says that same thing.  He oughter be sent over the mountain to git l’arnin’.”

“And we’ll be missing him sore,” said Polly Ann, with a sigh.

I wanted to speak then, but the words would not come.

“Whar hev they gone?” said Tom.

“To take a walk,” said Polly Ann, and laughed.  “The gentry has sech fancies as that.  Tom, I reckon I’ll fly over to Mrs. McCann’s an’ beg some of that prime bacon she has.”

Tom picked up his ride, and they went out together.  I lay for a long time reflecting.  To the strange guests whom Tom in the kindness of his heart had brought back and befriended I gave little attention.  I was overwhelmed by the love which had just been revealed to me.  And so I was to be educated.  It had been in my mind these many years, but I had never spoken of it to Polly Ann.  Dear Polly Ann!  My eyes filled at the thought that she herself had determined upon this sacrifice.

There were footsteps at the door, and these I heard, and heeded not.  Then there came a voice,—­a woman’s voice, modulated and trained in the perfections of speech and in the art of treating things lightly.  At the sound of that voice I caught my breath.

“What a pastoral!  Harry, if we have sought for virtue in the wilderness, we have found it.”

“When have we ever sought for virtue, Sarah?”

It was the man who answered and stirred another chord of my memory.

“When, indeed!” said the woman; “’tis a luxury that is denied us, I fear me.”

“Egad, we have run the gamut, all but that.”

I thought the woman sighed.

“Our hosts are gone out,” she said, “bless their simple souls!  ’Tis Arcady, Harry, ‘where thieves do not break in and steal.’  That’s Biblical, isn’t it?” She paused, and joined in the man’s laugh.  “I remember—­” She stopped abruptly.