irly lined with cups, the
trophies of many a famous meet.

And such whiskey! There is nothing like it in Washington, or in the
whole world, perhaps. A volume might be written in praise of that
mellow, golden fluid. There were many in our party who would gladly add
to this glowing testimony, and wax eloquent over the virtues of that
noble life-saver and panacea, referred to by our good hosts as "a little
something." Accustomed, as most of us were, to the stuff served over the
Washington bars, this was indeed well worth the trip out.

Late February is not the time to see rural Kentucky at its best, and but
few signs of spring were visible. The day of the funeral dawned with
leaden skies, and a piercing wind from the north groaned in the
chimneys, and whistled through the leafless trees on the lawn. The
branches of a huge maple scraped and fretted against my windows and woke
me several times during the night. At an early hour a servant was piling
high the fire, and the room was soon bathed in a cheerful glow, the logs
cracking and sputtering merrily. I parted the curtains of my large
old-fashioned bed, slipped to the floor feeling very well and fit, and
glanced curiously about me. Every appointment of the room was long out
of date, but nevertheless made for snugness and comfort. The lover of
antique furniture would surely revel here. I do not know what would
delight him most; the high-post bed, the dressing-table, the chest of
drawers, or the old clock on the mantel. The sheets and hangings smelled
faintly of lavender, the walls were papered with landscapes in which
pretty shepherdesses, impossible sheep, and garlands of roses
predominated,--a style much in vogue in the early forties,--indeed the
room seemed as if it had been closed and laid away by a tidy housewife
years before, and opened and aired for my reception but yesterday. An
illumined text,--a "Jonah under his Gourd," elaborately worked in
colored silks,--a smirking likeness of "The Father of his Country," and
an equally self-satisfied looking portrait of Mrs. W. hung in prominent
places.

There was a gentle tap on the door, and an ancient darky entered, with a
tall glass of whipped-cream punch, light as a feather, and as delicate
as thought. Then, breakfast, in a long, low-ceilinged room on the ground
floor, with a blazing fire at each end, a pickaninny gravely watchful
over both. Only the male members of the family were at the meal, which
was a solemn festiv