t with joy against my arrival.

It is time, my children, to bring this story to a close. I would I might
write of those delicious spring days I spent with Dorothy at Carvel Hall,
waited on by the old servants of my grandfather. At our whim my chair
would be moved from one to another of the childhood haunts; on cool days
we sat in the sun by the dial, where the flowers mingled their odours
with the salt breezes off the Chesapeake; or anon, when it was warmer, in
the summer-house my mother loved, or under the shade of the great trees
on the lawn, looking out over the river. And once my lady went off very
mysteriously, her eyes brimful of mischief, to come back with the first
strawberries of the year staining her apron.

We were married on the fifteenth of June, already an anniversary for us
both, in the long drawing-room. General Clapsaddle was there from the
army to take Dorothy in his arms, even as he had embraced another bride
on the same spot in years gone by. She wore the wedding gown that was
her mother's, but when the hour was come to dress her Aunt Lucy and Aunt
Hester failed in their task, and it was Patty who performed the most of
that office, and hung the necklace of pearls about her neck.

Dear Patty! She hath often been with us since. You have heard your
mothers and fathers speak of Aunt Patty, my dears, and they will tell
you how she spoiled them when they went a-visiting to Gordon's Pride.

Ere I had regained my health, the war for Independence was won. I pray
God that time may soften the bitterness it caused, and heal the breach in
that noble race whose motto is Freedom. That the Stars and Stripes and
the Union Jack may one day float together to cleanse this world of
tyranny!

AFTERWORD

The author makes most humble apologies to any who have, or think they
have, an ancestor in this book. He has drawn the foregoing with a very
free hand, and in the Maryland scenes has made use of names rather than
of actual personages. His purpose, however poorly accomplished, was to
give some semblance of reality to this part of the story. Hence he has
introduced those names in the setting, choosing them entirely at random
from the many prominent families of the colony.

No one may read the annals of these men, who were at once brave and
courtly, and of these women, who were ladies by nature as well as by
birth, and not love them. The fascination of that free and hospitable
life has been so strong on the write