During the course of that Christmas night, there was one member of the Sequin household who failed to thrill with the holiday spirit, and whose depression steadily increased as the evening wore on. The great occasion of which Uncle Jimpson had dreamed all his life, had at last arisen, and instead of being allowed to rise with it, and prove his indisputable right to butlerhood, he had been detailed to drive back and forth to the station over that same humdrum Cane Run Road that he and Old John had helped to wear away for the past quarter of a century! To be sure, a neat depot wagon and a spirited young sorrel had replaced the ancient buggy and the apostolic nag, but these fell far short of Uncle Jimpson's dreams. A coach and four at that moment would not have compensated him for the fact that a complaisant, red-headed furnaceman, a “po' white trash” arrived but yesterday, was being allowed to pass the tray that by all rights of precedence belonged to him. Waiting impatiently at the station for the train that was to bring the elusive ices which he had been pursuing all evening, he at last had the satisfaction of seeing the small engine crawl out of the darkness, and come to a wheezing halt. So engrossed were the conductor and brakeman and Uncle Jimpson in safely depositing the freezers on the platform, that no one noticed a passenger who had alighted. In fact, it was not until Uncle Jimpson heard Mrs. Sequin's name that he paused from his labor and looked up. The stranger was a young, well-built man, wearing a long, shaggy overcoat, and a cap of a foreign cut that excited the immediate envy of the brake-man. The bag and the suit case which he carried were covered with foreign labels, and he had the air of a person who is suddenly dropped down in a strange place and doesn't quite know what to do with himself. “You say you want to git up to Mrs. Sequin's to-night?” Uncle Jimpson eyed the bags suspiciously. “'Scuse me, sir, but you ain't sellin' nothin', is you?” The laugh that greeted this was so spontaneous, that Uncle Jimpson hastened to apologize: “I nebber thought you wuz, only we wasn't lookin' fer no railroad company, an' I 'lowed you didn't look lak you wuz comin' to de party.” “What party?” asked the man, his look of amusement giving place to one of dismay. “Our-alls party. We's havin' a ball an' a house-warmin'. You must be comin' fum a long ways off not to be hearin' 'bout hit!” “You mean the Sequins are having a party, tonight?” “Yas, sir.” “But aren't they expecting me? Didn't they get my telegram?” “I dunno, sir. Dey nebber said nothin' to me.” The stranger stood with feet apart, watch in hand, and a grim expression on the only part of his face visible between his cap and his upturned collar. “What time is the next train back to town?” “Dey ain't none, 'ceptin' de special, what's hired to take de party back to town. Dat goes 'bout two o'clock.”