slightest sign.

When Mr. Wickersham visited his new estate he admitted that Mr. Bagge
knew better than he how to deal with General Keith.

When he was met at the station by a tall, gray-haired gentleman who
looked like something between a general and a churchwarden, he was
inclined to be shy; but when the gentleman grasped his hand, and with a
voice of unmistakable sincerity said he had driven out himself to meet
him, to welcome him among them, he felt at home.

"It is gentlemen like yourself to whom we must look for the preservation
of our civilization," said General Keith, and introduced him personally
to every man he met as, "the gentleman who has bought my old place--not
a 'carpet-bagger,' but a gentleman interested in the development of our
country, sir."

Mr. Wickersham, in fact, was treated with a distinction to which he had
been a stranger during his former visits South. He liked it. He felt
quite like a Southern gentleman, and with one or two Northerners whom he
met held himself a little distantly.

Once or twice the new owner of Elphinstone came down with parties of
friends--"to look at the country." They were interested in developing
it, and had been getting sundry acts passed by the legislature with this
in view. (General Keith's nose always took a slight elevation when the
legislature was mentioned.) General Keith entertained the visitors
precisely as he had done when he was the master, and Mr. Wickersham and
his guests treated him, in the main, as if he were still the master.
General Keith sat at the foot of the table opposite Mr. Wickersham, and