"Now, Mr. Hawes," said the General, "I want you to help yourself just as if you were alone at your own board. It is a pleasure to have you with us, and an additional pleasure to know, sir, that you are to become a permanent citizen of this county. Men may think themselves wise when they apprentice their sons to a trade, averring that the professions are overcrowded, but that has always been the case, and yet, professional men have ever been the happiest, for they achieve the most, not in the gathering of money, but in the uplifting of mankind. My daughter, you don't appear to be eating anything. I hope that you have not permitted the timely, though unexpected, visit of Mr. Hawes to affect your appetite. Chydister, another piece of this mutton? Most nutritious, I assure you; a fact, however, which is, no doubt, well known to you. Mr. Hawes, I should think that you would prefer to sleep here at night, rather than to stay alone in that old house. You are more than welcome to a room here, sir. And I should like to hear anecdotes of your grandfather, the Captain." "I shall be in the country but a part of the time during the week, and my coming and going will be irregular. But for this I should gladly accept your generous offer. As to my grandfather, I must admit that I know but little regarding his life." "A sad error in your bringing up, sir. In that one particular we Americans are shamefully at fault. A buncombe democracy has insisted that it is not essential to look back, but simply to place stress upon our present force and consequence. That is a self-depreciation, a half-slander of one's self. Of course, it is not just to despise a man who has no ancestry, but it is a crime not to honor him if he has a worthy lineage." And thus he talked until the rest of us sat back from the table, and then, gripping his cane and getting up, he said that he would like to talk to me privately in the library. Upon entering the room he filled a clay pipe, handed it to me, gave me a lighted match, filled a pipe for himself, and then lay down upon an old horse-hair sofa. I placed a cushion for his foot and he raised up and bowed to me. "I thank you, sir," he said. "I don't believe that Chyd would have thought of that. I believe that he will make of himself one of the finest of physicians, but a man may be a successful doctor and yet a thoughtless and an indifferent companion. You will please put the right construction upon what may appear as an over-frankness on my part, for the fact is I have never regarded you as a stranger; and I feel that what I say to you will go no further."