“My friends, one thing more remains for this Christmas night. The daughter of our family and my youngest son have made themselves proficient in the new patriotic air called ‘Dixie,’ which is destined to become the national air of the South, and they will now have pleasure in performing it for you.” The voices and bustle of a crowd of persons stopped instantly, and Angela, playing the opening chord of ‘Dixie,’ Archie struck into the first inspiring strain of the air. The two played it through with immense fire and spirit and then a storm of applause burst forth. Gentlemen shook hands, ladies clasped each other and fell into a rapture of hand-clapping and cries of applause. The air had to be repeated a half dozen times, and each time the tempest of enthusiasm rose and swept with magic force the souls and hearts of all present. Two persons alone were excepted, Neville Tremaine and Lyddon. They stood together near the fireplace while the music and cheering echoed around them and exchanged significant glances. “It is the _ça ira_ of to-day,” said Lyddon in Neville’s ear. At last, after an hour of excitement, enthusiasm, laughter, cheering, and glorious anticipation of victory, the last guest had driven off, and the ghostly light of a pallid moon and the dawn was creeping in at the windows. The candles had burnt down in their sockets and the hall fire was low when the Harrowby family said good night, or rather good morning. Lyddon noticed that Angela, although in appearance so fragile, seemed as fresh as when the dancing had begun eight hours before, and in fact she and Archie, after the fiddlers had gone, danced a final polka without music and had to be sent ignominiously to their rooms by Mrs. Tremaine’s authority. When Lyddon with Richard and Neville went into the study for a smoke before a three hours’ morning nap, they found Hector snoring comfortably on the hearth rug. “I wonder if any people in the world except you easy-going Virginians would stand this sort of thing?” said Lyddon, who had never been able to accustom himself to the spectacle of a butler who had got tipsy on every possible occasion for forty years. “Oh, that’s nothing!” replied Richard easily. “You never have understood our peculiar institution, Mr. Lyddon; it is strictly feudal, you know!” “It is a little too infernally feudal for me,” replied Lyddon. “It is worse than the feudalism in the Highlands of Scotland.” CHAPTER IV LOVE IN A MIST