and the pillars. It always followed a hearty meal. So they sat
respectfully while he marched before them, pointing occasionally, when
he took his cigar from his mouth and a hand from his vest, to some
feature of the landscape in the sunset light that needed emphatic
attention.

"Yes, sir, young gentlemen," expanded the colonel, "you are doing the
right and proper thing--the right and proper thing. Of all the
avocations of youth, I conceive the pursuit of the sombre goddess of
learning to be the most profitable--entirely the most profitable. I
myself, though a young man,--being still on the right side of
forty,--have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in the
classic shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left
my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring. In point of fact, I
attended the institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the father of
the American democracy--yes, sir." He put his cigar back in his mouth
and added, "Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may say,
highly necessary step--"

Mrs. Culpepper, small, sprightly, blue-eyed, and calm, entered the
veranda, and cut the colonel off with: "Good evening, boys. So you are
going away. Well--we'll miss you. The girls will be right out."

But the colonel would not be quenched; his fires were burning deeply.
"As I was saying, Mrs. Culpepper," he went on, "the classic training
obtained from a liberal education such as it was my fortune--"

Mrs. Culpepper smiled blandly as she put in, "Now, pa, these boys
don't care for that."