ommanded respect wherever he
appeared.

In all bodily exercises he excelled, and showed an extraordinary quickness
and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my two boys
proficient in that art; so much so, that when the French came to this
country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was superior to
my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George, who had taken the
king's side in our lamentable but glorious War of Independence.

Neither my father nor my mother ever wore powder in their hair; both their
heads were as white as silver, as I can remember them. My dear mother
possessed to the last an extraordinary brightness and freshness of
complexion; nor would people believe that she did not wear rouge. At sixty
years of age she still looked young, and was quite agile. It was not until
after that dreadful siege of our house by the Indians, which left me a
widow ere I was a mother, that my dear mother's health broke. She never
recovered her terror and anxiety of those days, which ended so fatally for
me, then a bride scarce six months married, and died in my father's arms
ere my own year of widowhood was over.

From that day, until the last of his dear and honoured life, it was my
delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and companion;
and from those little notes which my mother hath made here and there in
the volume in which my father describes his adventures in Europe, I can
well understand the extreme devotion with which she regarded him--a
devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her, I think, from
loving any other person except with an inferior regard; her whole thoughts
being centred on this one object of affection and worship. I know that,
before her, my dear father did not show the love which he had for his
daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments, this dear and tender
parent owned to me her repentance that she had not loved me enough: her
jealousy even that my father should give his affection to any but herself;
and in the most fond and beautiful words of affection and admonition, she
bade me never to leave him, and to supply the place which she was
quitting. With a clear conscience, and a heart inexpressibly thankful, I
think I can say that I fulfilled those dying commands, and that until his
last hour my dearest father never had to complain that his daughter's love
and fidelity failed him.

And it is since I knew him entirely, for during my