The years have sped indeed since that gray December when Miss Virginia Carvel became eighteen.  Old St. Louis has changed from a pleasant Southern town to a bustling city, and a high building stands on the site of that wide and hospitable home of Colonel Carvel.  And the Colonel’s thoughts that morning, as Ned shaved him, flew back through the years to a gently rolling Kentucky countryside, and a pillared white house among the oaks.  He was riding again with Beatrice Colfax in the springtime.  Again he stretched out his arm as if to seize her bridle-hand, and he felt the thoroughbred rear.  Then the vision faded, and the memory of his dead wife became an angel’s face, far—­so far away.

He had brought her to St. Louis, and with his inheritance had founded his business, and built the great double house on the corner.  The child came, and was named after the noble state which had given so many of her sons to the service of the Republic.

Five simple, happy years—­then war.  A black war of conquest which, like many such, was to add to the nation’s fame and greatness:  Glory beckoned, honor called—­or Comyn Carvel felt them.  With nothing of the profession of arms save that born in the Carvels, he kissed Beatrice farewell and steamed down the Mississippi, a captain in Missouri regiment.  The young wife was ailing.  Anguish killed her.  Had Comyn Carvel been selfish?

Ned, as he shaved his master’s face, read his thoughts by the strange sympathy of love.  He had heard the last pitiful words of his mistress.  Had listened, choking, to Dr. Posthlewaite as he read the sublime service of the burial of the dead.  It was Ned who had met his master, the Colonel, at the levee, and had fallen sobbing at his feet.

Long after he was shaved that morning, the Colonel sat rapt in his chair, while the faithful servant busied himself about the room, one eye on his master the while.  But presently Mr. Carvel’s revery is broken by the swift rustle of a dress, and a girlish figure flutters in and plants itself on the wide arm of his mahogany barber chair, Mammy Easter in the door behind her.  And the Colonel, stretching forth his hands, strains her to him, and then holds her away that he may look and look again into her face.

“Honey,” he said, “I was thinking of your mother.”

Virginia raised her eyes to the painting on the wall over the marble mantel.  The face under the heavy coils of brown hair was sweet and gentle, delicately feminine.  It had an expression of sorrow that seemed a prophecy.

The Colonel’s hand strayed upward to Virginia’s head.

“You are not like her, honey,” he said:  “You may see for yourself.  You are more like your Aunt Bess, who lived in Baltimore, and she—­”

“I know,” said Virginia, “she was the image of the beauty, Dorothy Manners, who married my great-grandfather.”

“Yes, Jinny,” replied the Colonel, smiling.  “That is so.  You are somewhat like your great-grandmother.”