s, I would mark with pain the
blush on Mrs. Manners's cheek, and clinch my fists as she tried to pass
this off as a joke of her husband's. But Dolly, who sat next me at a
side table, would make a wry little face at my angry one.

"You shall call me 'my lady,' Richard. And sometimes, if you are good,
you shall ride inside my coroneted coach when you come home."

Ah, that was the worst of it! The vixen was conscious of her beauty.
But her airs were so natural that young and old bowed before her.
Nothing but worship had she had from the cradle. I would that Mr.
Peale had painted her in her girlhood as a type of our Maryland lady of
quality. Harvey was right when he called her a thoroughbred. Her nose
was of patrician straightness, and the curves of her mouth came from
generations of proud ancestors. And she had blue eyes to conquer and
subdue; with long lashes to hide them under when she chose, and black
hair with blue gloss upon it in the slanting lights. I believe I loved
her best in the riding-habit that was the colour of the red holly in our
Maryland woods. At Christmas-tide, when we came to the eastern shore, we
would gallop together through miles of country, the farmers and servants
tipping and staring after her as she laid her silver-handled whip upon
her pony. She knew not the meaning of fear, and would take a fence or a
ditch that a man might pause at. And so I fell into the habit of leading
her the easy way round, for dread that she would be hurt.

How those Christmas times of childhood come sweeping back on my memory!
Often, and without warning, my grandfather would say to me: "Richard, we
shall celebrate at the Hall this year." And it rarely turned out that
arrangements had not been made with the Lloyds and the Bordleys and the
Manners, and other neighbours, to go to the country for the holidays. I
have no occasion in these pages to mention my intimacy with the sons and
daughters of those good friends of the Carvels', Colonel Lloyd and Mr.
Bordley. Some of them are dead now, and the rest can thank God and
look back upon worthy and useful lives. And if any of these, my old
playmates, could read this manuscript, perchance they might feel a tingle
of recollection of Children's Day, when Maryland was a province. We
rarely had snow; sometimes a crust upon the ground that was melted into
paste by the noonday sun, but more frequently, so it seems to me, a
foggy, drizzly Christmas, with the fires crackling in saloon a