"Well"--and she halted doubtfully at the door--"I'll tell her. And if you want Dr. Delaven to hear about the old racing days, honey, hadn't you better take him into the library where the portraits are? I'm a trifle uneasy lest Mr. Loring should take a notion to come in here. Since he's commenced to walk a little he is likely to appear anywhere but in the library. He never does seem to like the library corner." Delaven glanced at the library walls as the three advanced thereto--walls paneled in natural cedar, and hung with large gilt frames here and there between the cases of books. "I should think any man would like a room like this," he remarked, "especially when it holds one's own family portraits. There is a picture most attractive--a fine make of a man." "That Mahs Tom Loring, Miss Gertrude's father," explained Nelse. "Jest as fine as he looks theah, Mahs Tom was, and ride!--king in heaven! but he could ride. 'Taint but a little while back since he was killed, twenty yeahs maybe--no, eighteen yeahs come Christmas. He was followen' the houn's, close on, when his horse went down an' Mahs Tom picked up dead, his naik broke. His wife, Miss Leo Masterson, she was, she died some yeahs befo', when Miss Gertrude jest a little missy. So they carried him home from Larue plantation--that wheah he get killed--an' bury him back yonder beside her," and he pointed to a group of pines across the field to the north; "so, after that--" "Oh, Nelse, tell about live things--not dead ones," suggested Evilena, "tell about the races and your Mahs Duke, how he used to go horseback all the way to Virginia, to the races, and even to Philadelphia, and how all the planters gathered for hundreds of miles, some of the old ones wearing small clothes and buckled shoes, and how--" "Seems like you done mind them things so well 'taint no use tryen' to rake up the buried reck'lections o' the pas' times," said the old man, rebukingly, and with a certain pomposity. "I reckon now you 'member all the high quality gentlemen. The New Market Jockey Club, an' how they use to meet reg'lar as clock-work the second Tuesday in May and October; an' how my Mahs Duke, with all the fine ruffles down his shirt front, an' his proud walk, an' his voice soft as music, an' his grip hard as steel, was the kingpin o' all the sports--the grandest gentleman out o' Calliny, an' carried his head high as a king ovah all Jerusalem--I reckon you done mind all that theah, Miss Lena." "I will, next time," laughed the girl, "go on, Nelse, we would rather hear what you remember."