One evening, after all the little nurslings were hushed, we sat as usual, telling over, with the garrulity of age, the events of “by-gone days.” Ashton's talent for animated narrative was of the first order, and the hours flew on the wings of delight, when I could get him to dilate on the revolutionary struggles at the south. Of those times his mind retained the faint recollections of childhood, but his memory was stored with volumes of their kindling and heart-stirring facts, which seemed to possess double interest, when told by the patriot and the sage. His early fancies had been fed with this “ancient lore” from the fountain of a mother's love and a mother's instructions. Listening to her stories of the self-denial, hardships and dangers, our ancestors encountered in the path to freedom, his soul had become transformed into their image; and now, the spirits of Laurens, and Rutledge, and Sumpter, seemed to stalk before me, while he rehearsed their deeds. I inquired if any members of his own immediate family were engaged in the war? “None,” he replied, “but its evils were felt in almost every family, and its consequences, like those of other civil wars, were often destructive to domestic peace and happiness. Such was the case in our own house. I have remarked the fixed attention with which you have gazed on a female portrait in my saloon. It is not often I lift the veil which conceals the story of one whose fate was so intimately linked with the tenderest feelings of my own heart; but I see that your sympathies are already interested, and if you desire it, I will give you a brief sketch of the original of the portrait, referring, where my recollections fail, to my mother's memoranda.” I expressed my high gratification at his offer, and he proceeded to relate the following particulars. “Morna Ridgely was the only child of Colonel Charles Ridgely, an officer in the forty-second regiment of British light infantry. He was the younger son of a noble family in Northumberland; and, as usual in such cases, the laws of entail excluded him from the advantages of patrimony, leaving him to choose between the church and the army. He possessed a gallant, noble, and sincere disposition, and scorned the idea of making ‘merchandise of the gospel;’ but to fight his country's battles, to bring glory to Old England, was quite congenial to his feelings. His choice was made, and he was to go into the army as soon as a vacancy occurred in the regiment. Meantime, he was pursuing his studies at the University of Edinburgh, where many of the younger branches of English nobility are sent.