Mr. Sanderson, seeing that a bottle of Chateau Margaux was but half emptied, sighed that he had not detected it sooner. Filling a goblet with the purple fluid, he drained it in long and appreciative draughts, rolling the smooth juice over his tongue, and carefully savoring the bouquet. Having emptied this bottle, he sighted another nearly two thirds full of champagne. Sanderson felt a pang at the thought that there was a limit to man’s ability to quaff good liquor. He, however, went up to the attack bravely, and succeeded in disposing of two full tumblers. Then a spirit of meek content at his bibulous achievements seemed to come over him. He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, leaned back, and benignantly said, “This warm weather has made me a trifle thirsty.” Wigman suddenly started from his sleep, wakened by the cessation of noise. Sanderson rose, and assisted the Senator to his feet. “Come, my dear fellow,” said he, “it’s time to adjourn. Good by, young gentlemen!” And arm in arm the two worthies staggered out of the hall, each under the impression that the other was the worse for liquor, and each affectionately counselling the other not to expose himself. Vance still sat at his table, and from behind a newspaper glanced occasionally at the two young men who had so excited his interest. “Now, Kenrick,” said Onslow, “now that Robson the impenetrable, and Wigman the windy, and Sanderson the beastly, are out of the way, tell me what you mean by your incomprehensible conduct. When we met at table to-day, the first time for five years, I did not dream that you were other than you used to be, the enthusiastic champion of the South and its institutions.” “You wonder,” replied Kenrick, “that I should express my detestation of the Rebellion and its cause,—of the Confederacy and its corner-stone,—that I should differ from my father, who believes in slavery. How much more reasonably might I wonder at _your_ apostasy from truths which such a man as your father holds!” “My father is an honorable man,—an excellent man,” said Onslow; “but—” “But,” interrupted Kenrick, “if you were sincere just now in the epithet you flung at me, you consider him also a traitor. Now a traitor is one who betrays a trust. What trust has your father betrayed?” “He does not stand by his native State in her secession from the old Union,” answered Onslow. “But what if he holds that his duty to the central government is paramount to his duty to his State?” asked Kenrick. “That I regard as an error,” replied Onslow. “Then by your own showing,” said Kenrick, “all that you can fairly say is, that your father has erred in judgment,—not that he has been guilty of a base act of treason.” “No, I didn’t mean that, Charles,—your pardon,” said Onslow, holding out his hand. Kenrick cordially accepted the proffered apology, and then asked: “May I speak frankly to you, Robert,—speak as I used to in the old times at William and Mary’s?” “Certainly. Proceed.”