The citizen., 1914-03-13


bend in the stream, and as they turned
it the large silvery green slope of the
lawn lay before them, with its long
wharf and barges lying at the water
side, and ship unloading its return
cargo from England.
''It is the Sea Lady" called young
Hampton. "She is in before us-and
she sailed so long after"
He made quick movement forward
with his pathetic broken step-for this
only son of the Hampton family was a
cripple.
There were people gathering on the
lawn, negroes drawn up in line; the
women in bright-colored turbans, men
and women both showing white teeth
as they grinned with the pleasure and
the excitement of watching the ship
come in. Then a white light figure
ran down the broad greenness, and
girl stood, golden curls on her shoul-
ders, a straw hat with blue ribbons
tying down some of the golden curls,
but not all-stood and watched and
waved an eager friendly hand.
1T is my cousin Lucy" Harry
Hampton said, and Francois, looking
at him, saw his eyes fixed on her in
tently.
In a few minutes more, leaving the
ship with his halting careful step,
Francois saw him kiss her cousinly-
yet it seemed not altogether cousinly
and with that he was saying word
about my new friend, the Chevalier
Beaupre," and the girls quick hand
clasp and the warm welcome in her
voice of honey made Francois feel as
if place in her friendship had been
waiting for him always.
Then, from back of her, from some
where, lowered suddenly tall man.
with large features, and first seized
Harry Hampton's hand and then
turned to the stranger with the same
air of entire pleasure and hospitality.
"My nephews friend is welcome at
Roanoke house." he said, and Francois,
with his few words of English, under
stood enough to be warmed to the soul
at his first contact with southern hos
pitality.
1T is my uncle, Colonel Hampton"
Harry's voice was explaining.
They would not hear of his going to
Carnifax-not for days, not for
month; why should he go at all?-
Colonel Hampton asked. If he were to
be only a year or two in Virginia, why
trouble to set up housekeeping alone
in that big house, when Roanoke house
was here and in order, and only too
glad to keep him. So Francois for a
week or two stayed. And found him
self, shortly, notability. Harry Hamp-
ton, his boyish ambition for adventure
and daring denied every personal out
let, because of that accident in baby
hood which had started him in life
lame, was as proud of his
salvage from the Austrian bird of
prey as If Francois record had been
his own. Much more frankly proud, for
he could talk about it, and did. Alike
had told him a great deal, and the
episode of the headlong rescue of
Prince Louis Napoleon, the capture
and Imprisonment and final theatrical
escape, went like wild-fire about the
and stirred all the ro-
nance of the warm-blooded southern
ers. Every house wanted the hero to
break bread, and under young Harry's
pr1 I'D wing Francois went gladly to
meet all these friends of his friend.
AS the general had said years ago,
his simplicity struck the finest note
of sophisticated high breeding; more
over, he had lived with high-bred
people in more than one country; the
of Virginia were delighted
with his young nobleman, as they
thought him-with his charm of man
ner and his stirring history, with the
lines of suffering still In his thin face
and the broad lock of gray-the badge
of that suffering-in his dark hair;
with the quaint foreign accent too, and
the unexpectedness in the turns of
his rapidly increasing English.
And now he had left Roanoke, and
was living in the great old house on
Pietro's land, the old house which had
been lived in a hundred years before
Pietro's father had bought it, the old
house in which grandchildren of Pie
tro live today.
Something in his odd broken Eng
lish, something in his vivacity and en-
ergy, something in the warmth of the
heart which the poor souls felt in
quicker than negroes to
feel a heart-fascinated the slaves
who fell to his unaccustomed manage
ment. He had met Henry Clay and
the proud aristocrats of Virginia as
men and women, and given them the
best n himself; he met these thick
Tipped, dim-souled, black people no
and gave them the same.
BY the crystal truth in him the first
had been vanquished, and it happened
not differently with these other human
beings. Pietro's mishandled property