Yancey, late
of the Confederate army, had been the colonel's guests at his hospitable
house in Bedford Place for a period of six days and six nights, when
my cards--two--were given to Chad, together with my verbal hopes that
both gentlemen were within.
My visit was made in conformity with one of the colonel's inflexible
rules,--every guest under his roof, within one week of his arrival,
was to be honored by a personal call from every friend within reach.
No excuse would have sufficed on the ground of flying visits. And
indeed, so far as these particular birds of passage were concerned,
the occupation was permanent, the judge having taken possession of the
only shake-down sofa on the lower floor, and the warlike major having
plumped himself into the middle of the colonel's own bed not ten minutes
after his arrival. Even to the casual Northern eye, unaccustomed to
the prolonged sedentary life of the average Virginian when a guest,
there was every indication that these had come to stay.
Chad laid both of my cards on the table, and indulged in a pantomime
more graphic than spoken word.
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