“With you, boy, it’s all plain sailin’. You’re the best looking chap in the county. I was a dandy when I was young. It does me good to look at you if you don’t care nothin’ about fine clothes. Then you’re as sharp as a razor. There ain’t a man in No’th Caliny that can stand up agin you on the stump. I’ve heard ’em all. You ’ll be the Governor of this state.” That was always the climax of Tom’s prophetic flattery. He could think of no grander end of a human life than to crown it in the Governor’s Palace of North Carolina. He belonged to the old days when it was a bigger thing to be the Governor of a great state than to hold any office short of the Presidency,--when men resigned seats in the United States Senate to run for Governor, and when the national government was so puny a thing that the bankers of Europe refused to loan money on United States bonds unless countersigned by the State of Virginia. And that was not so long ago. The bankers sent that answer to Buchanan’s Secretary of the Treasury. “Tom, you’ve lifted me out of the dumps. I owe you a doctor’s fee,” cried Gaston with enthusiasm as he placed Flora back on the grass and started to his office. “All I charge you is to come again. The old man’s proud of his young friend. You make me feel like I’m somebody in the old world after all. And some day when you’re great and rich and famous and the world’s full of your name, I ’ll tell folks I know you like my own boy, and I ’ll brag about how many times you used to come to see me.” “Hush, Tom, you make me feel silly,” said Gaston as he warmly pressed the old fellow’s hand. He went back toward his office with lighter step and more buoyant heart. His mind was as clear as the noonday sun that was now flooding the green fresh world with its splendour. He would stand by his own people. He would sink or swim with them. If poverty and failure were the result, let it be so. If success came, all the better. There were things more to be desired than gold. CHAPTER IV--THE ONE WOMAN GASTON called at the post-office to get his mail. One relief the Cleveland administration had brought Hambright--a decent citizen in charge of the post-office. Dave Haley had given place to a Democrat and was now scheming and working with McLeod for the “salvation” of it the state, which of course meant for the old slave trader the restoration of his office under a Republican administration. If the South had held no other reason for hating the Republican party, the character of the men appointed to Federal office was enough to send every honest man hurrying into the opposite party without asking any questions as to its principles. Sam Love, the new postmaster was a jovial, honest, lazy, good-natured Democrat whose ideal of a luxurious life was attained in his office. He handed Gaston his mail with a giggle. “What’s the matter with you, Sam?” “Nuthin’ ‘tall. I just thought I’d tell you that I like her handwriting,” he laughed.