ous men
and women who promenaded under those chandeliers, and sat down to the
game-laden table. In 1835 General Atkinson and his officers thought
nothing of the twenty miles from Jefferson Barracks below, nor of dancing
all night with the Louisville belles, who were Mrs. Brinsmade's guests.
Thither came Miss Todd of Kentucky, long before she thought of taking for
a husband that rude man of the people, Abraham Lincoln. Foreigners of
distinction fell in love with the place, with its open-hearted master and
mistress, and wrote of it in their journals. Would that many of our
countrymen, who think of the West as rough, might have known the quality
of the Brinsmades and their neighbors!

An era of charity, of golden simplicity, was passing on that October
night of Anne Brinsmade's ball. Those who made merry there were soon to
be driven and scattered before the winds of war; to die at Wilson's
Creek, or Shiloh, or to be spared for heroes of the Wilderness. Some were
to eke out a life of widowhood in poverty. All were to live soberly,
chastened by what they had seen. A fear knocked at Colonel Carvel's heart
as he stood watching the bright figures.

"Brinsmade," he said, "do you remember this room in May, '46?"

Mr. Brinsmade, startled, turned upon him quickly.

"Why, Colonel, you have read my very thoughts," he said. "Some of those
who were here then are--are still in Mexico."

"And some who came home, Brinsmade, blamed God because they had not
fallen," said the Colonel.

"Hush, Comyn, His will be done," he answered; "He has left a daughter to
comfort you."

Unconsciously their eyes sought Virginia. In her gown of faded primrose
and blue with its quaint stays and short sleeves, she seemed to have
caught the very air of the decorous century to which it belonged. She was
standing against one of the pilasters at the side of the room, laughing
demurely at the antics of Becky Sharp and Sir John Falstaff,--Miss Puss
Russell and Mr. Jack Brinsmade, respectively.

Mr. Tennyson's "Idylls" having appeared but the year before, Anne was
dressed as Elaine, a part which suited her very well. It was strange
indeed to see her waltzing with Daniel Boone (Mr. Clarence Colfax) in his
Indian buckskins. Eugenie went as Marie Antoinette. Tall Maude Catherwood
was most imposing as Rebecca; and her brother George made a towering
Friar Tuck, Even little fifteen-year-old Spencer Catherwood, the
contradiction of the family, was there. He went as