which equity might be on his side, with the law dead against him; and which was regarded by older men with the conservatism of age as impossible until, by his brilliant effort, he unexpectedly won it. As like as not he rode forty miles that night to give a flower to his sweetheart.
From this time his reputation, his influence, and his practice increased. His professional position was henceforth assured. He had risen from a tyro to be an old lawyer.
JAMES LANE ALLEN
[James Lane Allen was born near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1849. He attended Transylvania University, and after teaching school for several years he accepted the chair of Latin and higher English in Bethany College, West Virginia. After two years he resigned this position and has since devoted himself to literature, residing the greater part of the time in New York City. His earlier sketches of Kentucky life were published in 1891 under the title "Flute and Violin." This was followed by the short novels "A Kentucky Cardinal," and its sequel "Aftermath," and "A Summer in Arcady." With "The Choir Invisible" Mr. Allen began to work in the longer form of fiction, the novel, which has since chiefly occupied his time.]
TWO GENTLEMEN OF KENTUCKY[1]
[Under the new conditions resulting from the Civil War and his altered fortunes, Colonel Romulus Fields, representing "the flower of that social order which had bloomed in rank perfection over the blue-grass plains of Kentucky during the final decades of the old régime," determined to sell his place and move to town. Of the Colonel's former slaves, one remained inseparable from his person. This was "an old gentleman—for such he was—named Peter Cotton." "In early
- ↑ These extracts from the story entitled "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky" are reprinted from "Flute and Violin" by special arrangement with the publishers of Mr. Allen's works, the Macmillan Company.
