POLLY IN UNIFORM STYLE MARSE CHAN. A Tale of Old Virginia. Illustrated by W. T. Smedley. MEH LADY. A Story of the War. Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart. POLLY. A Christmas Recollection. Illustrated by A. Castaigne. UNC' EDINBURG. A Plantation Echo. Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst. _Each, small quarto, $1.00_ [Illustration: "_The young man found it necessary to lean over and throw a steadying arm around her._"] POLLY [Illustration] A CHRISTMAS RECOLLECTION BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE ILLUSTRATED BY A. CASTAIGNE [Illustration] CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK, 1897 [Illustration] Copyright, 1894, by Charles Scribner's Sons TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "_The young man found it necessary to lean over and throw a steadying arm around her._" Frontispiece. _Vignette heading._ Page 1. "_Drinkwater Torm fell sprawling on the floor._" Page 10. "_'I will!' he said, throwing up his head._" Page 22. "_There he was standing on the bridge just before her._" Page 30. "_He made Torm, Charity, and a half-dozen younger house-servants dress him._" Page 38. [Illustration] IT was Christmas Eve. I remember it just as if it was yesterday. The Colonel had been pretending not to notice it, but when Drinkwater Torm[A] knocked over both the great candlesticks, and in his attempt to pick them up lurched over himself and fell sprawling on the floor, he yelled at him. Torm pulled himself together, and began an explanation, in which the point was that he had not "teched a drap in Gord knows how long," but the Colonel cut him short. "Get out of the room, you drunken vagabond!" he roared. Torm was deeply offended. He made a low, grand bow, and with as much dignity as his unsteady condition would admit, marched very statelily from the room, and passing out through the dining-room, where he stopped to abstract only one more drink from the long, heavy, cut-glass decanter on the sideboard, meandered to his house in the back-yard, where he proceeded to talk religion to Charity, his wife, as he always did when he was particularly drunk. He was expounding the vision of the golden candlestick, and the bowl and seven lamps and two olive-trees, when he fell asleep. The roarer, as has been said, was the Colonel; the meanderer was Drinkwater Torm. The Colonel gave him the name, "because," he said, "if he were to drink water once he would die." As Drinkwater closed the door, the Colonel continued, fiercely: "Damme, Polly, I will! I'll sell him to-morrow morning; and if I can't sell him I'll give him away." Polly, with troubled great dark eyes, was wheedling him vigorously.