The scribe now reaches a night in Oliver's career fraught with such momentous consequences that he would be glad to leave its story untold:
An unforgettable night indeed, both for those who were assembled there, and for him who is the chronicler. He would fain lay down his pen to recall again the charm and the sweetness and the old-time flavor of that drawing-room: the soft lights of the candles; the perfume of the lilacs coming in through the half-open windows; the merry laugh of the joyous girl running through the Square to be ushered by Malachi a moment later into the presence of her hostess, there to make her courtesied obeisance before she joined a group of young people around one of the red damask-covered sofas. And then Richard, dear Richard, with his white hair and his gracious speech, and Miss Clendenning with her manners of foreign courts, and the sweet-voiced hostess of the mansion moving about among her guests; her guests who were her neighbors and her friends; whose children were like her own, and whose joys and sorrows were hers—guests, neighbors, friends many of whom after this fatal night were to be as enemies never to assemble again with the old-time harmony and love.
Malachi had brewed the punch; the little squat glasses were set out beside the Canton china bowl, for it was the night of the weekly musical and an unusually brilliant company had assembled in honor of Oliver's arrival and of Richard's recovery.
The inventor was to play his own interpretations of Handel's Largo, a favorite selection of Ole Bull, and one which the inventor and the great virtuoso had played together some years before.
Miss Clendenning had taken her place at the piano, Nathan standing beside her to turn the leaves of the accompaniment.
Richard had picked up his violin, tucked it under his chin, poised the bow, and that peculiar hush which always precedes the sounding of the first notes on evenings of this kind had already fallen upon the room, when there came a loud rap at the front door that startled everyone and the next instant Colonel Clayton burst in, his cheeks flaming, his hat still on his head.
"Ten thousand Yankees will be here in the morning, Horn!" he gasped, out of breath with his run across the Square, holding one hand to his side as he spoke, and waving an open telegram in the other. "Stop! This is no time for fiddling. They're not going round by water; they're coming here by train. Read that," and he held out the bit of paper.
The Colonel's sudden entrance and the startling character of the news, had brought every man to his feet.
Richard laid down his violin, read the telegram quietly, and handed it back.
"Well, suppose they do come, Clayton?"