The rooms upstairs were empty, except for some packing-cases and rubbish--all but one small chamber, to which my mother alone had the key, and which contained a great iron-bound chest that I stood much in awe of. In the wide hallway downstairs were three portraits; one before which my mother often used to stand and weep (I knew it to be he who had sailed away in the ship and used to carry me on his shoulder). The second was a handsome pale-faced man whose hair fell in long ringlets over his steel armor, and who looked forth, very proud and haughty, from his piercing gray eyes that would follow one even out of the door on to the piazza. (I have often peered around the corners to see if they would discover me, and they never failed in it.) The third was a beautiful one of a woman whom I thought to be my mother. One day she told me, however, that it was not--that it was her twin sister, at which I marvelled. A score or so of books were in a great case in one of the bare front rooms, some of them bound in handsome leather bindings and filled with fine engravings. What would I not give to possess them now! One day was so much like another that, were it not for the seasons that flew by quickly, the world would have apparently been standing still; but that the oars were becoming less heavy and the distances not so great. Very soon I tended the nets alone or wandered along the shore with the old flintlock fowling-piece over my shoulder; ducks, or perhaps a wild goose or a swan, during the spring and fall, were always ready to be cooked, hanging in the spring-house at the end of the garden. I began to roam farther and farther in my lonely excursions. Poor old Maréchal would follow me no longer than reached the shadow of the house. I suppose that many people who travelled by the coach that passed the cross-roads every day wondered who the boy was that used to stand with a tall gun beside him at a fence corner, silently watching the lumbering vehicle go down the highway in a cloud of dust. I must have presented a quaint sight, no doubt, for my clothes were of home manufacture and I kept growing out of them. But the buttons, I recollect, on the rough cloth, were very beautiful, and inscribed with the same crest that was painted on one corner of the portrait with the flowing brown hair; these buttons played an important part in subsequent adventures, and I would give a finger to possess one at the present writing. But I am forging ahead of my story. To get back to it in quick order: One day my mother and I and Ol' Peter mounted the rickety wagon to which our one lone mule was harnessed, and drove to the cross-roads. It was the first time that I could remember my mother leaving the plantation. I did not know then that it was on my account that she was making this departure, but I can see it plainly enough in looking over the time. A question that I had asked of her some days before had more than probably decided her upon doing so.