intense interest that a group of scientists or collectors would have evinced in discussing some new discovery in chemistry or physics, or the coming to light of some rare volume long since out of print—­everybody, indeed, taking a hand in the discussion except Latrobe, whose mouth was occupied in the slow sipping of his favorite Madeira—­tilting a few drops now and then on the end of his tongue, his eyes devoutly closed that he might the better relish its flavor and aroma.

It was all an object lesson to Harry, who had never been to a dinner of older men—­not even at his father’s—­and though at first he smiled at what seemed to him a great fuss over nothing, he finally began to take a broader view.  Wine, then, was like food or music, or poetry—­or good-fellowship—­something to be enjoyed in its place—­and never out of it.  For all that, he had allowed no drop of anything to fall into his own glass—­a determination which Todd understood perfectly, but which he as studiously chose to ignore—­going through all the motions of filling the glass so as not to cause Marse Harry any embarrassment.  Even the “1817” was turned down by the young man with a parrying gesture which caught the alert eyes of the major.

“You are right, my boy,” the bon vivant said sententiously.  “It is a wine for old men.  But look after your stomach, you dog—­or you may wake up some fine morning and not be able to know good Madeira from bad.  You young bloods, with your vile concoctions of toddies, punches, and other satanic brews, are fast going to the devil—­your palates, I am speaking of.  If you ever saw the inside of a distillery you would never drink another drop of whiskey.  There’s poison in every thimbleful.  There’s sunshine in this, sir!” and he held the glass to his eyes until the light of the candles flashed through it.

“But I’ve never seen the inside or outside of a distillery in my life,” answered Harry with a laugh, a reply which did not in the least quench the major’s enthusiasms, who went on dilating, wine-glass in hand, on the vulgarity of drinking standing up—­the habitual custom of whiskey tipplers—­in contrast with the refinement of sipping wines sitting down—­one being a vice and the other a virtue.

Richard, too, had been noticing Harry.  He had overheard, as the dinner progressed, a remark the boy had made to the guest next him, regarding the peculiar rhythm of Poe’s verse—­Harry repeating the closing lines of the poem with such keen appreciation of their meaning that Richard at once joined in the talk, commending him for his insight and discrimination.  He had always supposed that Rutter’s son, like all the younger bloods of his time, had abandoned his books when he left college and had affected horses and dogs instead.  The discovery ended in his scrutinizing Harry’s face the closer, reading between the lines—­his father here, his mother there—­until a quick knitting of the brows, and a flash from out the deep-brown