As I heard the deep bass of the old Drummer, rolling in a low, solemn undertone, a sudden shifting of the scene came to me. I was in a great auditorium filled with light, and packed with humanity rising tier on tier and stretching far back till lost in the maze of distances. A grand orchestra, banked before me, with swaying arms and earnest faces, played a wonderful harmony which rolled about me like the sea and whelmed me with its volume till I was almost swept away by the tide, then suddenly down under its sweep I found the low deep roll of the bass drum. No one appeared to mark it or paid any heed to him. Nor did the big Drummer pay any heed to the audience. All he minded was the harmony and his drum. But I knew that, unmarked and unheeded, it set athrob the pulsing air and stirred the billows through which all that divine music reached and held the soul. As we walked home that night after pressing our way into the throng of poor people to wring John Marvel's hand, I said to my wife after a struggle with myself to say it: "I think I was wrong about John, and you were right. He did right. He is well named the Assistant." My wife said simply: "I feel that I owe him more than I can say." She slipped her hand in my arm, and a warm feeling for all mankind surged about my heart. * * * * * BOOKS BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE ROBERT E. LEE: The Southerner "The South will treasure this volume."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._ THE OLD DOMINION: Her Making and Her Manners "One of the most charming volumes ever written about Virginia; as history it is important."--_Newark Evening News._ THE OLD SOUTH Essays Social and Political "They afford delightful glimpses of aspects and conditions of Southern life which few at the North have ever appreciated fully."--_The Congregationalist._ THE NEGRO: The Southerner's Problem "One of the most dispassionate and illuminating discussions of the racial questions in the South."--_Cincinnati Times-Star._ SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD VIRGINIA BEFORE THE WAR "Will be much admired by the lovers of 'the good old times,' which the author describes so graphically."--_Charleston News and Courier._ THE COAST OF BOHEMIA "These poems are full of music. They are exquisite in sentiment and charming in expression."--_Nashville American._ RED ROCK A Chronicle of Reconstruction Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst "One of the most satisfactory works of fiction that the South has ever produced. On all this crowded canvas there is not a figure that is not drawn from the life, and given character by sympathy or insight into motive."--_The Dial._ THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK With 8 colored illustrations by H. C. Christy "This is not only one of the most characteristic and charming of Mr. Page's studies of Virginia character, but it is a story which readily lends itself to illustration, and especially to the kind of decorative illustration which Mr. Christy has given it."--_The Outlook._