lay a wager, Major, that man's father was a gentleman. The fact is,
I have not treated him with proper respect. He has shown me every
courtesy since I have been here, and I am ashamed to say that I have
not once entered his doors. His calling twice in one evening touches
me deeply. I did not expect to find yo' tradespeople so polite."

Chad's face was a study while his master spoke, but he was too well
trained, and still too anxious over the outcome of the expected
interview, to do more than bow obsequiously to the colonel,--his
invariable custom when receiving an order,--and to close the door
behind him.

"That old servant," continued the colonel, watching Chad leave the
room, and drawing his chair nearer the fire, "has been in my fam'ly
ever since he was bawn. But for him and his old wife, Mammy Henny, I
would be homeless to-night." And then the colonel, with that soft
cadence in his voice which I always noticed when he spoke of something
that touched his heart, told me with evident feeling how, in every
crisis of fire, pillage, and raid, these two faithful souls had kept
unceasing watch about the old house; refastening the wrenched doors,
replacing the shattered shutters, or extinguishing the embers of
abandoned bivouac fires. Indeed, for months at a time they were its
only occupants, outside of strolling marauders and bands of foragers,
and but for their untiring devotion its tall chimneys would long since
have stood like tombstones over the grave of its ashes. Then he added,
with a break in his voice that told how deeply he felt it:--

"Do you know, Major, that when I was a prisoner at City Point that
darky tramped a hundred miles through the coast swamps to reach me,
crossed both lines twice, hung around for three months for his chance,