Calvert of Strathore | Page 2

good leg, the other member being merely a wooden stump. He was followed by a younger man, who sprang out and waited respectfully, but eagerly, until Mr. Jefferson had welcomed his companion.
"Mr. Morris!--my dear sir! welcome to Paris! welcome to this little spot of America!" said Mr. Jefferson, shaking the older man cordially by the hand again and again and drawing him toward the open door. And then passing quickly out upon the step to where the young man still stood looking on at this greeting, Mr. Jefferson laid a hand affectionately on his shoulder and looked into the young eyes.
"My dear boy, my dear Calvert!" he exclaimed with emotion, "I cannot tell you how welcome you are, nor how I thank you for obeying my request to come to me!"
"The kindest command I could have received, sir," replied the young man, much moved by Mr. Jefferson's affectionate words and manner.
Turning, and linking an arm in that of each of his guests, Mr. Jefferson led them into the house, followed by the servants carrying their travelling things.
"Ah! we will bring back Virginia days in the midst of this turbulent, mad Paris. 'Tis a wild, bad place I have brought you to, Ned," he said, turning to the young gentleman, "but it must all end in good--surely, surely." Mr. Jefferson's happy mood seemed suddenly to cloud over, and he spoke absently and almost as if reassuring himself. "But come," he added, brightening up, "I will not talk of such things before we are fairly in the house! Welcome again, Mr. Morris! Welcome, Mr. Secretary!"--he turned to Calvert--"It seems strange, but most delightful, to have you here." Talking in such fashion, he hurried them up the great stairway as fast as Mr. Morris's wooden leg would permit, and into his private study.
"Ha! a fire!" said Mr. Morris, sinking down luxuriously in a chair before the blazing logs. "I had almost forgot what the sight of one was like, and I was beginning to wish that this"--he looked down and tapped his sound leg, laughing a little whimsically, "were wood, too. I would have suffered less with the cold!"
"I am sure you must have had a bitter journey from Havre," rejoined Mr. Jefferson. "'Tis the coldest winter France has known for eighty years--the hardest, cruellest winter the poor of this great city, of this great country, can remember. Would to God it were over and the spring here!"
"I should imagine that it had not been any too pleasant even for the rich," said Mr. Morris, shivering slightly. But Mr. Jefferson paid no attention to the sufferings of the rich suggested by Mr. Morris, and only stirred the blazing logs uneasily.
"At any rate it serves to make our welcome here seem the warmer, sir," said Calvert, from where he stood divesting himself of his many-caped top-coat.
"Ah! that is spoken like you, Ned! But stand forth, sir! Let me see if you are changed, if four years at the College of Princeton have made another fellow of my old Calvert of Strathore." He went over to the young man and drew him into the middle of the room, where the cold, brilliant sunshine struck full on the fine young face. There was no shadow or line upon it.
"You are much grown," said Mr. Jefferson, thoughtfully, "much taller, but 'tis the same slender, athletic figure, and the eyes and brow and mouth are not changed, thank God!"
"Is there no improvement, sir? Can you note no change for the better?" said Calvert, laughing, and attempting to cover his embarrassment, at the close scrutiny he was undergoing. "But I fear not. I fear my college life has left as little impress on my mind as on my body. I shall never be a scholar like you, sir," he added, with a sigh.
"And yet, in spite of your disinclination to study, you have gone through college, and most creditably. Dr. Witherspoon himself has written me of your career. Does that say nothing in your favor?"
"To be sure it does," broke in Mr. Morris, laughing. "There is no merit in being a scholar like Mr. Jefferson here, who was born a student. He couldn't have helped being a scholar if he had tried. But for you, Mr. Calvert, who dislike study, to have made yourself stick to the college curriculum for four years, I consider a great and meritorious achievement!"
"I agree with you entirely, Mr. Morris," said Mr. Jefferson, joining in the laugh, "and as for that, Ned has done more than merely stick to the curriculum of the college. Dr. Witherspoon, in writing me of his progress, was pleased to say many complimentary things of several excursions into verse which he has made. He especially commended his lines on 'A View of Princeton College,' written something after the manner