The Vanderlyns were Baltimoreans--the widow and children of a man of large wealth and considerable distinction, who had died three or four years before in that city, after having amassed a fortune by property speculations and subsequently filled more than one responsible office under the State government. They had the true Southern pride in wealth and position; and the hand of the daughter had already been sought, however ineffectually, by scions of the best families in and about the Monumental city. Let it be added that they belonged, whatever may have been their pride and arrogance as a family, to the not-too-extensive class of _loyal_ Marylanders,--and then a better title of nobility will have been enrolled than any that Clayton Vanderlyn's money and former public employments had power to supply. The widowed mother and her children were among the few residents below Mason and Dixon's line who had not forgotten the pleasant summer days of old in the North, when Puritan and Cavalier met as friends and brothers; and this summer tour, which was to include Saratoga and Newport before it closed, was a result of the old recollection. Mrs. Vanderlyn, the mother, seemed forty-five, but was fine-looking and had evidently been handsome in her youth--with those splendid brown eyes that must then have sparkled so much more brilliantly than at this period, and that perfect wealth of chestnut hair, not yet in the least sprinkled with gray, which must then have been a charm and a glory. Her travelling-dress was very plain, but of the best materials; and every thing in her appearance--especially pride of look and action,--spoke of wealth, the habit of mingling in that indefinable but actual thing, good society, and a perfect consciousness of what she was and what she possessed. Those who looked twice upon Mrs. Vanderlyn, with keen eyes, had no difficulty in deciding that she might be a very pleasant acquaintance for those in her own "set" and whom she considered her equals,--but that she would be any thing but a pleasant acquaintance for those whom she despised or with whom she chanced to fall into feud.