When the general talk turned upon the Albemarle Resolutions and the morning's proceedings in the House of Delegates, it was as though an invisible grindstone had put upon the moment a finer edge.
Lewis Rand, sweeping his letters and papers together, had nodded to Adam and moved from his table to that of a pillar of the Republican party, with whom he was now in attentive discourse.

Apparently he gave no heed to the voices around him, though he might have heard his own name, seeing that wherever the talk now turned it came at last upon his speech of that morning.

Presently, "Mr.Rand!" called some one from across the room.
Rand turned.

"Mr.Harrison ?" "Mr.Rand, there's a dispute here.

Just what did you mean by--" and there followed a quotation from the morning's speech.
Rand moistened his lips with wine, turned more fully in his chair, and answered in a sentence of such pith as to bring applause from those of his party who heard.