The Major stroked his beard ominously. "Did it ever occur to you, Dick," he demanded, "that enough families were estranged by that War without carrying it over into the Twentieth Century? Let me see--how long after the War were you born? Twenty years, wasn't it? I remember; your father and Ruth's were married about the same time." "Every man has a right to his opinions, Major," Dick asserted with spirit. "Of course I've no personal knowledge of the War, but"--stubbornly--"the North was right." "Fairfax to the core!" thought the Major in secret admiration. "The boy's his father all over again. Well, Dick," he said mildly, "we older men of the South feel a little differently about this War; but, my boy, these post-bellum disputes don't pay, particularly when one participant was born long after the guns were quiet. In my opinion you didn't know enough about the War to quarrel over it. Great Scott, quarreling over the War! Dick, you deserved to be spanked." The jingle of sleigh-bells rang blithely through the silence that followed, and the Major sprang to his feet. "Merciful Heavens!" he exclaimed, staring at his watch, "it's twelve o'clock. That must be Uncle Neb still waiting, and Grandmother Verney's probably standing on the church porch yet, mad as a hornet." He was at the door now, calling wildly to the negro: "Uncle Neb, why under the canopy didn't you call me?" The darky scratched his head. "Massa Edward," he confessed, "I ain't been yere. I jus' druv Missy Ruth over to Brierwood with Uncle Noah to see Colonel Fairfax." The Major summoned Dick in great excitement. "Dick," he exclaimed, "get into your overcoat as fast as you can and drive over to Brierwood with Uncle Neb. Ruth's gone ahead of you, and you couldn't have a better deputy short of an angel." Dick wrung the Major's hand and fled to the waiting sleigh, the color flooding his face. "And, Uncle Neb," called the Major frantically, "hurry back, or Grandmother Verney will be tramping home in the snow, rheumatism or no rheumatism." With a wild jingle of bells that seemed to Dick the hysterical echo of his own heartbeats the sleigh was off. VI The Colonel's Christmas VI At Brierwood the Colonel, wrought to a high tension of excitement by the mysterious flood of Christmas prosperity, of which the latest manifestation had been a fresh newspaper dated the night before, surmounted by a cigar of no mean label, had been vainly searching for Uncle Noah, bewildered by the darky's odd vagaries which had culminated in the culprit's disappearance. Just as the Colonel had returned to the library, drawn his favorite chair up to the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, and opened his favorite volume, a door in the rear of the house shut softly, and, convinced that Uncle Noah had returned, the Colonel closed his book and adjusted his glasses, determined to have an immediate reckoning with the author of all this Christmas cheer.