rubbed his hands and glowed all day with delight at being able to
relieve my necessity.

"I am a Virginian, suh. Command me," was his way of putting it.

So to-night I pushed open the swinging door, felt my way along the
dark passage, and crossed the small yard choked with snow at the precise
minute when the two hands of the great clock in the tall tower pointed
to six.

The door was opened by Chad.

"Walk right in, suh; de colonel's in de dinin'-room."

Chad was wrong. The colonel was at that moment finishing his toilet
upstairs, in what he was pleased to call his "dressing-room," his
cheery voice announcing that fact over the balusters as soon as he
heard my own, coupled with the additional information that he would
be down in five minutes.

What a cosy charming interior, this dining-room of the colonel's! It
had once been two rooms, and two very small ones at that, divided by
folding doors. From out the rear one there had opened a smaller room
answering to the space occupied by the narrow hall and staircase in
front. All the interior partitions and doors dividing these three rooms
had been knocked away at some time in its history, leaving an L interior
having two windows in front and three in the rear.

Some one of its former occupants, more luxurious than the others, had
paneled the walls of this now irregular-shaped apartment with a dark