At the time of which I am writing, the dream-bubble was at the brightest and biggest. She was in active correspondence with the officers of the Colonization Society; subscribed to and read colonization publications, and dealt out excerpts from the same to all who would listen; was busy, sanguine, and bright, beholding herself, in imagination, the leader in a crusade that would wipe the stain of slavery from her beloved state. One event of that wonderful winter was a visit paid to Aunt Rice by her aged father, Major James Morton, of High Hill, Cumberland County, the “Old Solid Column” of Revolutionary story. The anecdote of Lafayette’s recognition of his former brother-in-arms was related in an earlier chapter. It was treasured in the family as a bit of choice silver would be prized. I had heard it once and again, and had constructed my own portrait of the stout-hearted and stout-bodied warrior. Surprise approximated dismay when I behold a withered, tremulous old man, enfeebled in mind almost to childishness, his voice breaking shrilly as he talked—a pitiable, crumbling wreck of the stately column. He had definite ideas upon certain subjects still, and was doughty in their defence. For example, during this visit to his daughter, he sat one evening in the chimney-corner, apparently dozing, while a party of young people were discussing the increasing facilities of travel by steam, and contrasting them with the slow methods of their fathers. The Major drowsed on, head sunken into his military stock, eyes closed, and jaw drooping—the impersonation of senile decay—when somebody spoke of a trip up the Hudson to West Point the preceding summer. The veteran raised himself as if he had been shaken by the shoulder. “That is not true!” he said, doggedly. “But, Major,” returned the surprised narrator, “I did go! There is a regular line of steamers up the river.” The old war-horse reared his head and beat the floor with an angry heel. “I say it is not true! It could not be true! General Washington had a big chain stretched across the river after Arnold tried to sell West Point, so that no vessel could get up to the fort. And, sir!” bringing his cane down upon the hearth with a resounding thump, his voice clear and resonant, “there is not that man upon earth who would dare take down that chain. Why, sir, _General Washington put it there_!” A fragment of the mighty chain, forged in the mountains of New Jersey, lies upon the parade-ground at West Point. Forty years thereafter I laid a caressing hand upon a huge link of the displaced boom, and told the anecdote to my twelve-year-old boy, adding, as if the stubborn loyalist had said it in my ear, “And there it stands until this day, To witness if I lie.”