"When did he go?"
"Yistiddy, suh."
The colonel turned and went into the house, and the negro passed on, shaking his head and talking to himself. The colonel walked up and down the wide hall a little while, and then went into his library and flung himself into an easy-chair. As it happened, the chair sat facing his writing-desk, and over the desk hung a large portrait of his mother. It was what people call "a speaking likeness," and the colonel felt this as he looked at it. The face was full of character. Firmness shone in the eyes and played about the lips. The colonel regarded the portrait with an interest that was almost new. Old Shade in the woods,—old Shade a runaway! What would his mother say if she were alive? The colonel felt, too,—he could not help but feel,—that he was largely responsible for the fact that old Shade was a fugitive.
When Mary Rivers married Jack Preston, the colonel, Mary's father, insisted that the couple should live at the old home place. The desire was natural. Mary was the apple of his eye, and he wanted to see her rule in
