Once a year there was a great venison
supper in the dining-room, draped with holly and mistletoe. On Christmas eve
man a child's sock or stocking was hung--no one knew when or by whom--around
the shadowy chimney-seat of her room; and every Christmas morning the little
negros from the cabins knew to whom each of these belonged. In spring,
parties of young girls and youths came out from town for fishing parties and
picknicked in the lawn amid the dandelions and under the song of the
blackbird; during the summer, for days at a time, other gay company filled
the house; of autumns there were nutting parties in the russet woods. Other
guests also, not young, not gay. Aaron Burr was entertained there; there met
for counsel the foremost Western leaders in his magnificent conspiracy. More
than one great man of his day, middle-aged, unmarried, began his visits,
returned oftener for awhile--always alone--and one day drove away
disappointed.
Through seasons and changes she had gone softly: never retreating from life
but drawing about her as closely as she could its ties, its sympathies, it
duties: in all things a character of the finest equipois, the truest
moderation.
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