It will hardly be believed that we kept our own counsel so well that our own servants, while they might have their suspicions, were only certain that I was going North on Tuesday, as I had often gone on other summers, and that the girls who had been visiting me for a week were to remain to a party my sister would give on Tuesday evening. Not until Monday morning were any of them, except “Mammy Rachel,” informed what was on foot. The day dawned—if dawn it could be called—through steady sheets of rain. No delusive adage of “Rain before seven, clear before eleven” ever gained currency in Richmond. It was as clear to our dismayed souls that this was an all-day rain, as that the drive and cards could not be postponed until to-morrow. Sampson, the carriage-driver, whom we did not dub “coachman” until after the war, was notified by the mouth of Tom, the young dining-room servant, that he must have the carriage at the door at ten o’clock, and prepare for a long expedition. We were at the breakfast-table when word came back that “it warn’t a fittin’ day for no young ladies to go out. Nor for his carriage an’ horses. De ladies will have to put off their shoppin’ for another time.” Mea turned upon the respectful emissary with the snap of the eyes and incisive accent he knew full well: “Say to Sampson that Miss Virginia is to be married to-morrow, and that we have to take out cards. He will be here on time!” We had an answer before we left our chairs. “Yes, ma’am! He says he’d go if it _killed_ him and the horses!” We set forth at the appointed hour. Mea, Effie, Virginia Graves, and myself, wrapped up as for a winter journey, but in as high spirits as if the sun had shone and birds sung blithely in trees that shivered and shrank and streamed under the weight of the bitter rain. Poor Tom—for the nonce, the footman whose duty it was to jump down from his perch at every door before which we signalled Sampson to stop, to receive the enveloped card upon a silver tray, and to scamper up a walk or up a flight of steps, his umbrella held low over the precious consignment—had the worst of it all. He was soaked to the skin by the time the route was finished and we turned homeward. We were out four hours. And in all the four hours the rain never intermitted one drop, and the wind only changed from the east to blow from all quarters of the heavens at once. If coachman and patient footman were drenched, we were more than moist, and so chilled that we rejoiced with exceeding great joy at the sight of blazing fires in chambers and dining-room on our return.