Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/255

Rh about it. Queer how things swop round, isn't it? Anyhow, I'm here, and I've bought the land, and am going to knock up a decent house and settle down if things go as I want them. There's a shanty that we used to live in, on my farm, but no house. I'm in it now, and there's a room for you besides, if you'll fall in with my scheme. The old homestead is on the other part of the plantation, and the Beverleys own it still. I wanted it, but they wouldn't sell: so, as I say, I've got to build, and I want you to come down here and put up for a year with me and do up the thing in style. Money is no object, but taste is, and, as I have plenty of the one, and you of the other, we ought to make a success of my house. I see that stone and mortar are in your line now. Come down and pay me a visit anyhow,—and as soon as you can; because I never was a hog after delay. I'll meet you at our dog-hole of a station any day you name, and we can talk things over and arrange about the business part. Bring a gun, and fishing-tackle, and dancing-shoes too, if you still hanker after the petticoats. The old State can show a pretty woman or two yet, and we've got some sport left, in spite of the niggers and the clay-bank mongrels." The letter was signed his "faithfully, Ned Anthony," and across the top was scrawled hastily,—an evident after-thought,—"Wire what day I shall meet you."

Dan returned the letter to its envelope, amused and pleased and interested. So old Ned was back in the neighborhood he had left twenty years before, a barefooted boy without a second shirt to his back, in the plumed helmet and golden spurs of a knight of Plutus. He wondered how his former chum had been received in the stately, old-fashioned society of a conservative country neighborhood,—whether they were gracious, or turned their backs on him because of his father having worn shabby homespun and superintended another man's plantation and slaves and gone down to his grave in ignorance of a written language. He wondered also whether Ned grated on his neighbors, or whether the original grain of the man had compacted with the growth of years and become susceptible of polish. To him, Ned seemed improved: he liked that open reference to his father and his father's calling: it showed an absence of that meanest of all qualities, false pride. There was a delicacy about his reference to business matters also which did not escape Dan's notice, it was so unlike the Anthony of old. Most decidedly, he thought, his friend had improved.

The little romance they had discussed was doubtless in process of completion,—was rounding into the circle of a marriage-ring, as he had always said it should. The cheerful tone of Ned's letter, its hopefulness, this talk of building and of settling down "if things go as I want them," all pointed the same way. And Dan, who liked Ned,