To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the sword, and then kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and did not know how to behave under the circumstances. He said, leaning on the sword, “My dear child, learn that it is a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to kiss her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia’s hand and she did not make faces at me.” He looks now just as he did then. He is in uniform, covered with epaulettes, aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with his plumed hat reins up his war-steed and bows low as ever. Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all the “pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” and come down to my domestic strifes and troubles. I have a sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of my husband’s nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so pleases. Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-in-law, who has too many slaves to care very much about their way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, all in tears. She brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back I could see her face in the glass. “Maria, are you crying because all this war talk scares you?” said I. “No, ma’am.” “What is the matter with you?” “Nothing more than common.” “Now listen. Let the war end either way and you will be free. We will have to free you before we get out of this thing. Won’t you be glad?” “Everybody knows Mars Jeems wants us free, and it is only old Marster holds hard. He ain’t going to free anybody any way, you see.” And then came the story of her troubles. “Now, Miss Mary, you see me married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. I was a good and faithful wife to him, and we were comfortable every way—good house, everything. He had no cause of complaint, but he has left me.” “For heaven’s sake! Why?” “Because I had twins. He says they are not his because nobody named Whitaker ever had twins.” Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad husband has nearly mortified her to death. She has had three children in two years. No wonder the man was frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him for anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing better to say than, “Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your old Missis and Marster are so good to you. Now let us look up something for the twins.” The twins are named “John and Jeems,” the latter for her false loon of a husband. Maria is one of the good colored women. She deserved a better fate in her honest matrimonial attempt. But they do say she has a trying temper. Jeems was tried, and he failed to stand the trial.