So I dismissed Dan, whipped up my horse, and raced Charlie along the old Jerusalem Plank Road--that historic thoroughfare by which the Union troops first threatened Petersburg, and near which Fort Hell and Fort Damnation are still visible. We ran our horses past the old brick church, built of bricks brought from England to erect a place of worship for the aristocratic colonists, past the quiet graves in Blandford; and turning our horses into Washington Street, slackened their pace and, chatting merrily the while, rode slowly into the city toward the golden sunset. A few years later I was to run along this street in abject terror from bursting shells. “You ought to meet Dan Grey.” It came from George Van B---- this time. George was the poet laureate of our set. Afterward he was Colonel Van B----, and as gallant a soldier as ever faced shot and shell. I had been playing an accompaniment for him; he was singing a popular ditty of the day, “Sweet Nellie is by my Side”; I wheeled around on the piano-stool and faced him. “What is the matter with that man? He must be a curiosity?” “He is just the nicest fellow in town,” George asserted with mingled resentment and amusement. “He must be something extraordinary. One would think there was just one man in town and that his name was Dan Grey.” Before the week was out I heard it again. This time it was Willie. He spoke oracularly, and as if he were broaching an original idea. Page, the best dancer in our set, repeated the recommendation, looking as if I were quite out of the swim in not knowing Dan Grey. (If Governor ---- reads this chapter, will he please overlook the familiar use of his name? Boys and girls who have played mumble-peg together and snowballed each other, do not attach handles to each other’s names until they are more thoroughly grown up than we were then.) “I am sure it must be my duty to meet Dan Grey,” I said gravely. “I am continually being told that I ’ought to meet Dan Grey’ just as I might be told that I ought to go to church.” “Dan isn’t a bit like a church, Nell,” laughed Willie. “But he is a splendid fellow, generous to a fault--and then, you know, Dan is the handsomest man in town.” “Oh, no!” I retorted, “I left the handsomest man in town in Norfolk.” I can’t begin to tell how terribly tired I got of “You ought to meet Dan Grey,” “Haven’t you met Dan Grey?” Evidently Dan Grey was in no hurry to meet me. I knew that he was the toast of our set and that he ignored me as completely as if I were not in it--and I had never been ignored before. I also knew, without being continually told, that he was a broad-shouldered, magnificent-looking fellow, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and “the handsomest man in town.” My girl friends talked about him almost as much as the men did. And I did not even know the lion! I took great pains not to want to know him. I impressed it upon Willie and Charlie and George and the rest that they were not to bring Dan Grey to see me.