Inside the house our young friend found himself sorely puzzled. The furniture was old in style but very elegant, a thing for which he was fully prepared, but it stood upon absolutely bare white floors. There were both damask and lace curtains at the windows, but not a vestige of carpet was anywhere to be seen. Mr. Robert said nothing, but wondered silently whether it was possible that he had arrived in the midst of house-cleaning. Conversation, luncheon, and finally dinner at four, occupied his attention, however, and after dinner the whole family gathered in the porch--for really I believe the Virginians are right about that preposition. I will ask Mr. Robert himself some day. He soon found himself thoroughly at home in the old family mansion, among relatives who had never been strangers to him in any proper sense of the term. Not only was Mrs. Barksdale his father's sister, but Col. Barksdale himself had been that father's nearest friend. The two had gone west together to seek their fortunes there; but the Colonel had returned after a few years to practice his profession in his native state and ultimately to marry his friend's sister. Mr. Robert soon felt himself literally at home, therefore, and the feeling was intensely enjoyable, too, to a young man who for ten years had not known any home other than that of a bachelor's quarters in a college community. His reception at Shirley had not been the greeting of a guest but rather the welcoming of a long wandering son of the house. To his relatives there he seemed precisely that, and their feeling in the case soon became his own. This "clannishness," as it is called, may not be peculiar to Virginia of all the states, but I have never seen it half so strongly manifested anywhere else as there. Toward evening Maj. Pagebrook and his son Ewing rode over to call upon their cousin Robert, and after the introductions were over, "Cousin Edwin" went on to talk of Robert's father, for whom he had felt an unusual degree of affection, as all the relatives had, for that matter, Robert's father having been an especial favorite in the family. Then the conversation became more general. "When are you going to cut that field of tobacco by the prize barn, Cousin Edwin?" asked Billy. "I see it's ripening pretty rapidly." "Yes, it is getting pretty ripe in spots, and I wanted to put the hands into it yesterday," replied Maj. Pagebrook; "but Sarah Ann thought we'd better keep them plowing for wheat a day or two longer, and now I'm afraid it's going to rain before I can get a first cutting done." "How much did you get for the tobacco you sent to Richmond the other day, Edwin?" asked the colonel. "Only five dollars and three cents a hundred, average." "You'd have done a good deal better if you'd sold in the spring, wouldn't you?"