The nabobs of central Kentucky were a distinct and exclusive class in the years preceding the great Civil strife which freed the colored race. They had friends about them constantly, near and from a distance. They gave large banquets and more often drank immoderately; they dressed in expensive and fashionable clothes, and had body servants galore. Each gentleman had a personal valet, to shave him every morning, attend to his wardrobe and be always within call. Another servant groomed his favorite horse, brought it around and held the stirrup while his master mounted, and was always on the spot when his master returned to have the bridle reins thrown to his waiting hands. Then came the war scourge, and the old order passed. Homes were broken up; houses were pillaged and burned, bought and sold. Of the several stately homes surrounding Macon, but one or two remained in the family after the war. The Dudleys were an old family, proud as could be, and holding manual labor a disgrace. This faulty doctrine was due to heredity and training, and detracted in no way from the sterling manhood and womanhood which ran with the name. They had been wealthy people generations gone, living freely and without stint. Then came the days when one of them became a black sheep and killed a man while in liquor. It took most of the vast estate to save him from the gallows. When the war ended Major Thomas Dudley found that he had little left save a wife and child, the homestead, a half dozen horses of purest racing strain, and an eighty acre farm which would grow with equal abundance hemp, tobacco, corn or wheat. He would not work; he could not work. Had a Dudley's hand ever touched the handle of a plow? Never! Welcome genteel starvation rather than ignoble toil! In the meantime the family had to live in befitting manner. One by one the servants, enticed by their new-found freedom, drifted away. At length only Peter and Aunt Frances were left, and the Major knew that his body servant would never go, for between these two was that subtle, adamantine bond which rarely existed, but which, once formed, was indissoluble.