The Tempering

ain, halted for a moment at the stairhead to look down. On his distinguished face played a quiet smile. In these rapidly changi

yet an elderly fellow might enjoy the fragrance o

seemed to him that he stepped back into those days when gracious c

o gathered here: men who had been boyhood comrades in the Orphan Brigade, or Morgan's Cavalry: men who had, since the r

le. Aristocracies had risen and tottered since history had kept its score, but here, surviving all change, remained a simple graciousness, and a stamina of gre

nscoting and the waxed darkness of mahogany. He loved it all; the simple uncrowded elegance; the chaste designs of silver, upon which the tempered

ng groups, struck him as one to whom he could not accord an unreserved approval-as one whose dress and manner grated ever so slightly with their marring suspicion of pose. But this, he told himself, was o

al. "He's like a fractious colt just now-but when h

all, teasing and delighting a small girl with short skirts and beribboned hair. It was Anne Masters, that bewitc

flushed with dancing, threw open the front door, and a chilly gust swept in from the night. Then qu

irically inquired that young

of General Prince flashed a quick indignant light and under his

men's evening dress, was the parallelogram of the wide entrance-door, and centred on its threshold, against th

lue cotton, his clothes patched and shoddy, but under a battery of amused glances he sensed a spirit of ridicule and stiffened like a ramrod. A drifting peal of laughter from som

rried audibly over the hall a

' forward hyar," he announced simply, "an' I 'low

laughter should sweep the place as he finished. Prince caught an unidentified voice from his back. It was low p

aps from the back of

hand on Boone's shoulder. Under his palm he felt a t

lculated gravity-"is a friend of mine, Mr. Boone Wellver of Marlin County. I've enjoyed the hospitality of his people." Th

ations are issued. Word simply goes out as to ti

atters for his own understanding as well. Obviously here one did not come without being bidden, and tha

ed in him forbade the humiliation of unexplained flight. Such a course would indeed stamp him as a "yap," and howe

leaped with firelight and strings of fiddle and "dulcimore" quavered out the

t, but not so different, and he had

traight and stiff and spoke resolutely, thoug

ol mistake an' I reckon I'll s

anxiety to be gone, but paused with a forced deliberation, and

er cradle on. Swift impulses and ready sympathies gov

the haste of one wishing to forestall the possible thwarting of elderly objection, and ended with a dancing-school curts

ng owlishly. "I'm obleeged ter ye," he stammered with a sudden access of awkwardness, "but I hain't

e mountains they know only the square dances.

corroborated. "An' I'm beholden

y steering the unbidden guest across the hall and into the library where

had hoped against hope," he was indignantly asserting, "that when the man's own hand-made t

efute that idea," came the musical voice of a gentleman

tcome, but that he would abide by the decision of his party whips. The reporters were besieging those closed doors, and at the end you all know what verdict went over the

head. At all events the circle of gentlemen rose and shook hands as sedately as though they had been

mpestuously in, carrying a large package, and

and opened one Christmas gift before tomorrow. I

the parcel and laid on the centre table a pair of beautifully ch

ded delightedly. "Father, bend that blade and feel the temp

the lad made a pass or two at an imagi

ad one of the fencing-

osed again without sound, while Morgan lunged and parried at nothing on the hearth-rug. "'We're the cadets of Gascogny,'" the son of the house quoted l

en-gray slipped

ttle sward-fightin' I'll aim ter c

lt to reply to such an absurd invitation, and even the older men felt their reserv

these foils are delicate things. For all their temper, they snap like glass i

eyes narrowed. "All right. Hev hit yore own way," he r

Dinwiddie's sword-and, with the memory, an idea. "Morgan," he suavely suggested, "your challenge was general, as

ugh he felt that he was being forced into a ludicro

suddenly shed his grotesqueness. He dropped his blade and lifted it in salute, not like a bumpkin but with the finished grace of familiarity-the sweeping confidence of perfe

ved some expensive instruction and was on the way toward becoming a skilled hand with t

h arrivals, until the circle of bare-shouldered girls and attendant cavaliers pressed close on the area of combat. Backward and forward

most that he had, and against a lesser skill

a swift twist of a wrist, and young Wallifarro's foil flew clear o

of action descended upon him afresh as he awoke to the many watching eyes. Morgan held out a hand, which was diffidently r

g that this too was a matter included in hi

"I jest kinderly picked hit up

aracteristic of his close-mouthed self-containment that at Saul Fult