But the Major had already removed the overcoat and gently pushed his guest into a chair by the fire. "Yes, yes," he said as he seated himself; "we know all about that, my boy; but I'm afraid, d.i.c.k," he added regretfully, "that the Colonel wouldn't let you in. He's very bitter."

d.i.c.k groaned. He was calmer now. "You're right, Major," he said steadily; "it hurt so at first that I didn't think. I can't go now."

He leaned forward anxiously. "The Cotesville Bank--?" he questioned abruptly.

"Crashed in the autumn--in September." d.i.c.k bit his lip, and the Major added: "He was heavily interested?"

d.i.c.k stared at the fire. "It was all he had," he said.

"I see." The Major's quiet voiced gave no hint of his own emotion. "I didn't know. Of course I heard he had lost something; we all did; but I thought he had other money."

"No. Tell me, Major, you've been going to Brierwood this winter just as usual?"

"Of course; every Wednesday night. The Colonel and I are too old to alter the habit of a lifetime, and besides we both love that long evening playing chess. There's always a roaring wood fire and a steaming pot of coffee, and your mother always plays Beethoven for us just before I go."

A look of relief shone in d.i.c.k's eyes. "'Always a fire,'" he repeated.

"I'm glad of that. There was no suggestion of--of want?"

"Heavens, no!" The Major's deep voice was full of a.s.surance. "Last week," he added thoughtfully, "the coffee was pretty weak, but it never occurred to me that--" he stopped abruptly, rose from his chair with sudden energy, violently blew his nose, and tramped down to the end of the hall and back. "d.a.m.n the Fairfax pride!" he exclaimed fiercely.

"Here Uncle Noah has been coming into the library Wednesday nights and telling the Colonel that the stock had all been bedded down for the night when all the time there's been nothing left but this confounded old turkey gobbler we've been hearing about. He swore last week that somebody had stolen the silver teapot. Abominable old liar! He must have sold it." The Major threw out his arms with a wrathful gesture.

"All this comedy, if you please, for my benefit. Here I've been there every week, and never suspected, thanks to the infernal stratagems of that black fiend of an Uncle Noah. d.a.m.n the Fairfax pride!"

The Major sat down as suddenly as he had risen, and, bending over, attacked the fire with vicious energy.

"Tell me, Major," d.i.c.k presently asked, "have you ever mentioned me to the Colonel since I went North?"

"Once." The Major made a wry face. "I never tried again."

d.i.c.k colored. "Does he know about Ruth?"

"No, I dared not mention it." The Major looked at the other intently.

"d.i.c.k," he said, "what was this quarrel all about, anyway?"

"In the beginning, Major," admitted the young man, flushing, "it was so childish--I'm ashamed to speak of it."

"Out with it!" commanded the Major. "I won't be hoodwinked by a Fairfax any longer."

"Well, sir, if you must know, it was about--the War."

"The War!" exploded the Major. "By gad, sir, what about the War?"

"Dad and I were talking it over, and--well, to be frank, Major, I said I thought the North had been right, and that, if I had been in the world at the time, I would have fought with them despite my kinsmen."

"Go on! Did you fight in any other post-mortem wars? The Revolution, or the fall of Rome?"

d.i.c.k ignored the sarcasm. "My sympathy for the North made him furious," he went on. "We quarreled terribly and both of us said things that I know we didn't mean. It was the Fairfax temper, sir; I--"

"d.a.m.n the Fairfax temper!" roared the Major. "Thank Heavens, the Verneys are mild!"

d.i.c.k laughed, in spite of himself. "I apologized," he continued soberly, "but he wouldn't listen; told me to get out; said if I chose to change my opinions about the North, we'd talk it over, and I, of course, refused."

"Of course!" interpolated the Major trimly.

"I've written since, suggesting that we forget it all and start anew, but he won't listen, sir."

The Major stroked his beard ominously. "Did it ever occur to you, d.i.c.k," he demanded, "that enough families were estranged by that War without carrying it over into the Twentieth Century? Let me see--how long after the War were you born? Twenty years, wasn't it? I remember; your father and Ruth's were married about the same time."

"Every man has a right to his opinions, Major," d.i.c.k a.s.serted with spirit. "Of course I've no personal knowledge of the War, but"--stubbornly--"the North was right."

"Fairfax to the core!" thought the Major in secret admiration. "The boy's his father all over again. Well, d.i.c.k," he said mildly, "we older men of the South feel a little differently about this War; but, my boy, these post-bellum disputes don't pay, particularly when one partic.i.p.ant was born long after the guns were quiet. In my opinion you didn't know enough about the War to quarrel over it. Great Scott, quarreling over the War! d.i.c.k, you deserved to be spanked."

The jingle of sleigh-bells rang blithely through the silence that followed, and the Major sprang to his feet. "Merciful Heavens!" he exclaimed, staring at his watch, "it's twelve o'clock. That must be Uncle Neb still waiting, and Grandmother Verney's probably standing on the church porch yet, mad as a hornet." He was at the door now, calling wildly to the negro: "Uncle Neb, why under the canopy didn't you call me?"

The darky scratched his head. "Ma.s.sa Edward," he confessed, "I ain't been yere. I jus' druv Missy Ruth over to Brierwood with Uncle Noah to see Colonel Fairfax."

The Major summoned d.i.c.k in great excitement. "d.i.c.k," he exclaimed, "get into your overcoat as fast as you can and drive over to Brierwood with Uncle Neb. Ruth's gone ahead of you, and you couldn't have a better deputy short of an angel."

d.i.c.k wrung the Major's hand and fled to the waiting sleigh, the color flooding his face.

"And, Uncle Neb," called the Major frantically, "hurry back, or Grandmother Verney will be tramping home in the snow, rheumatism or no rheumatism."

With a wild jingle of bells that seemed to d.i.c.k the hysterical echo of his own heartbeats the sleigh was off.

VI

The Colonel's Christmas

VI

At Brierwood the Colonel, wrought to a high tension of excitement by the mysterious flood of Christmas prosperity, of which the latest manifestation had been a fresh newspaper dated the night before, surmounted by a cigar of no mean label, had been vainly searching for Uncle Noah, bewildered by the darky's odd vagaries which had culminated in the culprit's disappearance. Just as the Colonel had returned to the library, drawn his favorite chair up to the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, and opened his favorite volume, a door in the rear of the house shut softly, and, convinced that Uncle Noah had returned, the Colonel closed his book and adjusted his gla.s.ses, determined to have an immediate reckoning with the author of all this Christmas cheer.

A light step sounded behind his chair, and the Colonel turned, quite primed for an altercation. In an instant, however, the old man was on his feet, bowing grandly in spite of his astonishment. A girl stood in the doorway, her cloak falling loosely about her figure. Her cheeks were blazing scarlet from the cold, and the deep gray eyes, fringed in black, bore something in their warm depths that stirred familiar memories.

"Colonel," she said, stretching out a slim, white hand, "I'm Ruth Verney, Major Edward's niece. I've just driven one of your servants"

(rare tact was but one of the Verney charms) "over from Fernlands and I thought you wouldn't mind if I ran in for an instant to enjoy your fire."

"Why, child," the Colonel cried, forgetting all else in his delight, "you must be Walter Verney's daughter." Ruth smilingly nodded. "I knew it," he went on; "you have his eyes. Sit down here. I knew your father well; when we were boys he and I were inseparable." He paused and added simply:

"That was before the War."

The dark lashes veiled for an instant, a certain excitement in the gray eyes. "I'm down for Christmas with Uncle Edward," Ruth explained; and before the Colonel had fully realized it they were chatting happily together like old friends. Suddenly the girl exclaimed: "Colonel Fairfax, I know you'll be glad to hear that Dad and the Major are friends again."

"Indeed I am!" agreed the Colonel heartily. "In the old days we would have laughed at the man who could possibly have suggested a quarrel for the Verney twins."