The Washington times., 1913-08-10
CHAPTER II.
God Save the United States


The white-haired old man sal
in a large easy chair which hac
been especially designed for his com
| fort. For many years he had beer
without the use Of his lower limbs ano
a light coverlet Of silk was spread ovel
them. His handsome and intellectual
old face was clean-shaven, his Ions
hair, white as the infrequent SHOWS
Of his native land, fell in waves thai
| were almost curls upon his still broad
| shoulders. Age had dimmed the sigh
OF his eyes. but they coul still flash
with the soft wavering light of crown
ing years, like a far-off' vanishing
storm upon a summer night. His thin
aristocratic hands lay listless upon his
look on his face which ill-accorded with
the beautiful, peaceful scene spread
before his fading vision.
BY his side, stood a mere slip OF a
girl, pale OF face, dark OF hair, slight OF
figure-an undeveloped child who had
just passed her sixteenth birthday. The
lines Of her face and form were full
Of promise, but the realization would be
long deferred This was singular, for
In the sunshine Of that Southland the
flowers blossomed early. and most
things that were Notwithstanding
the young women-matured early. Girls
frequently were married at sixteen, al
seventeen they were mothers, and in
those terrible days Of war some OF
them became widows while they were
yet scarcely more than children.
1t was not so with Ariadne Lewis
Perhaps some quality of her French
great-grandmother, Anne de Rohan,
which she had received along with her
somewhat musical name from that IA
nous Breton woman, had retarded her
development, SO that when others OF
her sex were women she was as yet
1lNr naf nr mt q "a NJ q q
nevertheless, the main dependence and
the sole comfort of her grandfather. the
Judge. So far as nature permitted, she
supplied the place Of his wasted limbs
and IL she were slender and thin, 1t may
be that her assiduity In promoting the
old mans comfort, her constant and un-
stinted care for him, had contributed tc
that result
Mentally the girl was far in advances
of her day and generation. Continuous
contact with mind so richly furnished
as that of her grandfather had brought
her in touch with stores of unwonted
learning. The astute observations of the
wise old man of the world had sharpen
ed her native wit until. though child
in body, she had become a woman in
knowledge-a woman in knowledge OF all
those things her grandfather could
teach her, but lacking all sorts of in
formation peculiar to her sex which is
latent in her, could she have had a
mother, or even a friend, to call It
forth.
Judge Lewis and his granddaughter
lived alone on the old plantation. A
proud man had been the old Judge and
great part had he played in the his
tory of his native State and his country.
A Wild spirit of adventure moving him,
in the war of 1872 he had attached him
self TO the fortune Of that brave back
woods preux chevalier, Andrew Jack
son, and with the bold Tennesseeans
and Kentuckians and the dapper Creoles
he had stood behind the mud walls be-
low New Orleans and watched the Brit
ish power wither before the rifle blasts
OF the men of the forest glades.
Resigning from the army in the piping
times of peace, he had followed the law
and had been called to the bench.
Thereafter he had been sent to Con-
gress and then he had been elected and
Reelected again and again Senator OF
the United States from Virginia He
had ever remained, In Washington and
out Of 1t. the friend OF the great Ten
nessean soldier. who. like the Judge
himself, was one OF the finest gentle
men of his time. When In 1892 South
Carolina passed her famous ordinance
OF nullification, Judge Lewis had been
one Of the chief upholders OF Jackson's Q
determined and brilliant policy
He could have been reelected to the
Senate until he died had not a paralytic
stroke cut him down some ten years
since. Thereafter, in a pride which was
natural. II somewhat foolish. he had
Withdrawn from all participation in the
affairs OF men and had buried himself
with his little granddaughter at VAL
lewis, his ancestral plantation on the
James river. a few miles below Rich
mond. For a time his contemporaries
had sought him for comfort or counsel,
but presently a new generation which
knew not Joseph arose, and in his re-
tirement he was left as he desired, un-
vexed by the intrusion of strangers or
unharassed by the visit of friend.
Had Richard Lewis, his only son,
lived, 1t would all have been different of
course. His boys body lay beneath the
frowning cliffs OF Chapultepec. Bury
him on the field which he honored with
his hfe's blood" had been the Judges
reply to those who suggested bringing
Scott's army had left himt-the corpse
of an enemy in foreign land, alone,
forgotten by all but the judge himself
and some few of his comrades who
sometimes gave backward thoughts to
the wars Of the past in the threatening
conditions which were rapidly develop
ing then.
There was another grave near the
little chapel on the slope OF the hill
facing the river. Ariadne's mother lay
and valley, of plain and mountain. part
ed all that was left OF her from all that
was left OF the man she had loved,
whose daughter she had given birth to
ere she died OF heartbreak at the news
from the far-off field of battle. But in
the sight Of Him to whom a thousand
years are but as a watch in the night,
as yesterday when 1t is past, there is
no distance. and before God the souls
of Capt. Richard Lewis and Ariadne.
his wife, met and clasped hands in Joy
unspeakable.
The little girl often went alone to the
low grave marked with its plain white
stone-an unostentatious race, these
Lewises-and sat down on the green
turf and stared out across the sparkling
waters of the placid river. She dreamed
of the young soldier in that tropic land,
OF mother lying at her feet, of the two
who were parted for little space and
united for eternity. But flowers blos-
grave before her and over the grave
meath the shadow of the great Aztec
rock, and the reveries of the child were
sweet not sad. Sweet II is to think
that the dust that returns to the earth
some day becomes the frond of the
fowsr-from death, life. and that life
everlasting.
Her fathers and her mothers por-
traits hung side by side in the drawing
room. Arladne often stood at gaze be-
fore them and wondered IL she would
ever be as beautiful as the face of the
Young woman-scarcely more than
girl, indeed-that smiled down at her
from the dusky background OF the fad
ing canvas. She dreamed, too, OF a