“You did nothing of the sort,” replied Mrs. Tremaine, in her soft, even voice, but with a ring of displeasure and authority in it which was disquieting to both Hector and Colonel Tremaine. “And besides, Hector, you’ve been drinking, it is perfectly plain.” “Mist’iss, I ’clare I ain’t tech’ one single drap o’ liquor sence I had de rheumatiz week ’fore lars’.” Mrs. Tremaine cut him short by appealing to Colonel Tremaine. Usually she addressed him as “My dear,” and he replied with “My dearest Sophie”; but when discussions concerning Hector came about Mrs. Tremaine addressed the colonel as “Colonel” and he responded by calling her “Sophia.” “Colonel, have you seen those keys?” “Really, Sophia, I have not,” replied the colonel, with as much tartness as he ever used toward Mrs. Tremaine. The discussion grew warm, and Hector gave various accounts of what he had done with the keys, but no one thought of the practical solution of looking for them until Archie, having hung the last wreath, came up, and diving into Hector’s coat pockets, the first place which should have been searched, fished out two bunches of keys. “I tole you, Missis,” began Hector, still very unsteady upon his legs, “I had done put dese yere keys somewar. I jes’ disrecollected whar it was.” “Very well. Go at once and bring the decanter with brandy in it here, with sugar and glasses, for your young masters.” Hector walked toward the dining room, the picture of injured innocence, protesting under his breath--“I ain’t never teched a drap of liquor sence I had de rheumatiz.” Lyddon, standing with his arm on the mantelpiece, smiled and wondered. This sort of thing had been going on, he felt sure, ever since Colonel Tremaine had been able to grow hair on his face, and would continue to the end of the chapter, and Hector, having already had more liquor than was good for him, was in a position to help himself still further. Lyddon marveled if such a state of things could exist anywhere on earth outside of Virginia, and tried to fancy a similar case of the butler in an English family, but his imagination was not equal to such a flight. When Hector appeared, however, in a minute or two with the brandy and the glasses and put them on the polished mahogany table near the fire, both Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine relaxed their air of being slightly offended with each other. Colonel Tremaine, looking at his watch, remarked, with a courtly bow: “I think, my dearest Sophie, that our sons may be expected within half an hour, that is, if the boat was punctual.” “A half hour, my dear, is long to wait for those we love,” answered Mrs. Tremaine, laying her small white hand affectionately on Colonel Tremaine’s sleeve, at which the colonel took the hand and kissed it gallantly.