and read again. In the veranda a negro, his own slave, hired to this
hotel, held up an elegant military cap, struck an inquiring attitude,
and called softly, "Gen'al?"

"Bring it with the coffee."

But the negro instantly brought it without the coffee and placed it on
the table with a delicate flourish, shuffled a step back and bowed low:

"Coffee black, Gen'al, o' co'se?"

"Black as your grandmother."

The servant tittered: "Yas, suh, so whah it flop up-siden de cup it
leave a lemon-yalleh sta-ain."

He capered away, leaving the General to the little steamboats and to a
blessed ignorance of times to be when at "Vicksburg and the Bends" this
same waiter would bring his coffee made of corn-meal bran and muddy
water, with which to wash down scant snacks of mule meat. The listless
eye still roamed the arid page as the slave returned with the fragrant
pot and cup, but now the sitter laid it by, lighted a cigar and mused:--

In this impending war the South would win, of course--oh, God is just!
But this muser could only expect to fall at the front. Then his large
estate, all lands and slaves, five hundred souls--who would inherit that
and hold it together? Held together it must be! Any partition of it
would break no end of sacredly humble household and family ties and
work spiritual havoc incalculable. There must be but one heir. Who?
Hilary's mother had been in heaven these many years, the mother of