The officer passed me, wheeled suddenly, bowed low, and asked me if he saw Mrs. Madison, the President's lady, at the same time placing his hand in the bosom of his coat. I inclined my head, expecting that he would draw forth nothing less than a pistol. But it was a package instead of a pistol that he offered, saying, 'I was requested to place this in your hands by Lady ---- of England, and finding you had just left your residence, I questioned your servants and took the liberty of following you.' He turned with a low bow, and was gone, leaving me overwhelmed with mortification." The seat that inspired _Swallow Barn_ was the home of my aunt. John P. Kennedy was her nephew and my cousin. In its main features the book is singularly true, as an artist would say, in its effects. The prominent character of Mr. Tracy is almost a literal portrait. To me, so familiar with the real scenes, there seemed an appearance of rather too much restraint, as if the conscientious author felt too constantly the fear that his hand, gentle as it was, might transgress the laws of hospitality and decorum. This feeling on my part arose, no doubt, from the single fact that I did know the reality, and thus knew many episodes that would have made the sketches richer to us giddy young people of that jolly household, but which did not commend themselves to the practised writer. He took pains to place Swallow Barn on the lower James. But it was west of the Blue Ridge, in Jefferson county. The mother of Kennedy was a very beautiful and highly accomplished woman. She was known among her friends as "Kennedy's angel." She excelled particularly in music, always tuning her piano herself, and giving her preference to the works of Mozart. Here at her sister's, Mrs. Dandridge's--at "Swallow Barn," as we may now call it--she and Kennedy's father passed their later years, and here many of Cousin John's happiest days were spent. He always retained his boyish love of fun. He and Washington Irving would come up to the old place together, and then beware! No one escaped their mischief. They spared neither age, sex nor previous condition. Such pranks, such absurdities, such good-natured deviltry, as reigned supreme till they were gone! During harvest they would take their seats under the trees with the hands at the long dinner-tables, and assiduously bottle up quaint sayings and odd doings for future use.