It was in a quiet corner of a secluded street, lined with what was once a favorite shade-tree in Richmond—the Otaheite mulberry. The night had been cold, and the last russet leaves were ankle-deep on the sidewalk. They rustled as I moved uneasily in loosening my veil. I never passed the spot afterward without thinking of the absurd little episode in the history of those melancholy days. “I see, now, that they are very pretty and very becoming,” my father pursued, as they were divested of the ugly mufflers. “I have been very cross for the past twenty-four hours. I suppose because I have been horribly upset by the National calamity. We will turn over a new and cleaner leaf.” He was often stern, and oftener imperative. It was his nature to be strong in all that he set his hand or mind unto. I have yet to see another strong man who was so ready to acknowledge a fault, and who made such clean work of the act. XVI HOME AT CHRISTMAS—A CANDY-PULL AND HOG-KILLING WE went home at Christmas! Twenty years were to elapse before I should spend another Christmas week in the country. We did not know this then. Not a hitch impeded the smooth unrolling of the weeks of expectation and the days of preparation for the holidays. We were to set out on Monday. On Friday, Spotswood drove up to our door, and Mary Anne, my mother’s own maid, alighted. That evening James Ivey reported for escort duty. Even elderly women seldom travelled alone at that date. About young girls were thrown protective parallels that would widen our college-woman’s mouth with laughter and her eyes with amazement. There were no footpads on the stage-road from Richmond to Powhatan, and had these gentry abounded in the forests running down to the wheel-tracks, stalwart Spotswood and a shot-gun would have kept them at bay. Maid and outrider were the outward sign of unspoken and unwritten conventions rooted in love of womankind. The physical weakness of the sex was their strength; their dependence upon stronger arms and tender hearts their warrant for any and every demand they chose to make upon their natural protectors. We had none of these things in mind that joyful Monday morning when Uncle Carus, on one hand, and James Ivey on the other, helped us into the carriage. Carriage-steps were folded up, accordion-wise, and doubled back and down upon the floor of the vehicle when not in use. The clatter, as the coach-door was opened and the steps let down, was the familiar accompaniment of successive arrivals of guests at hospitable homes, and worshippers at country churches.