e Calvert, a
descendant of one of the Lords Baltimore, browsing in his park, and his
great four-in-hand carriage was going in the lodge-gates from a state
visit to the Custises. Passing direct to Georgetown from Bladensburg,
they encountered General Jackson, taking his evening ride on horseback,
and saw the chasm of the new canal being dug along the Potomac, and
then, crossing Mason's ferry, they were set down at Arlington House an
hour after dark.

The hospitable, harmless proprietor welcomed them into the huge edifice,
half temple, half barn, among his elaborate daubs of pictures, and
furniture and relics of Custis and Washingtonian times. He was nearly
fifty years of age, of Indian features, but rather weak face, like one
whose only substantiality was in his ancestors, and Vesta, placing him
beside her husband, reflected that a similar inbreeding had produced a
similarity in the two men, both of a sallow and bilious attenuation; but
Milburn, beside her kinsman Custis, was like a bold wolf beside a
vacant-visaged sheep.

Yet these men liked each other immediately, Milburn's intelligence and
money, and real reverence for the great man who had adopted Mr. Custis,
giving him admittance to the latter's fancy.

They strolled through those beautiful woods, one day to become a grove
of sepulture for an army of dead, while Vesta, in the dwelling, talked
with her cousins, and with the graceful Lieutenant Lee, who was courting
Mary Custis.

It was a happy domestic life, and in the host's veins ran the blood of
the Calverts, though not of the legitimate line.

It was suggested to go to the Capitol, and Mr. Milburn, growing daily
better in the hill region, went also, and wore his steeple hat, greatly
to the edification of Mr. Custis, who revelled in such antiquities.
Vesta heard the ladies whispering, when they returned, that a parcel of
boys and negroes had followed the hat, laughing and jeering, and had
finally driven the party to their carriage. This, and her husband's
impatience to return to his business, hastened their departure from
Arlington.

They took the steamer down the Potomac, and, as they came off the mouth
of St. Mary's River, Milburn donned his Raleigh's hat again, and stood
on deck, looking at the lights about the old Priest's House, where the
capital of Lord Baltimore lay, a naked plain and a few starveling
mementoes, within the bight of a sandy point that faced the archipelago
of the Eastern Shore.

"