outbreak of the war, like Colonel Keith rose to the rank of general,
and, like General Keith, received a wound that incapacitated him for
service. His wife was a Southern woman, and had died abroad, just at the
close of the war, leaving him a little girl, who was the idol of his
heart. He was interested in the South, and came South to try and
recuperate from the effects of his wound and of exposure during the war.

The handsomest place in the neighborhood of Elphinstone was "Rosedale,"
the family-seat of the Berkeleys. Mr. Berkeley had been killed in the
war, and the plantation went, like Elphinstone and most of the other
old estates, for debt. And General Huntington purchased it.

As soon as General Keith heard of his arrival in the neighborhood, he
called on him and invited him to stay at his house until Rosedale should
be refurnished and made comfortable again. The two gentlemen soon became
great friends, and though many of the neighbors looked askance at the
Federal officer and grumbled at his possessing the old family-seat of
the Berkeleys, the urbanity and real kindness of the dignified,
soldierly young officer soon made his way easier and won him respect if
not friendship. When a man had been a general at the age of twenty-six,
it meant that he was a man, and when General Keith pronounced that he
was a gentleman, it meant that he was a gentleman. Thus reasoned the
neighbors.

His only child was a pretty little girl of five or six years, with great
brown eyes, yellow curls, and a rosebud face that dimpled adorably when
she laughed. When Gordon saw her he recognized her instantly as the tot
who had given her doll to the little dancer two years before. Her eyes
could not be mistaken. She used to drive about in the tiniest of village
carts, drawn by the most Liliputian of ponies, and Gordon used to call