CONTENTS

CHAP.PAGE
I.

Forebears and Patron Saint

[1]
II.

Lafayette; Revolutionary Tales; Parents’ Marriage

[16]
III.

A Country Exile; Death of the First-Born; Change of Home; A Fireside Tragedy; “Cogito, Ergo Sum”

[27]
IV.

A Berserker Rage; A Fright; The Western Fever; Montrose; A Mother Regained

[37]
V.

Our Powhatan Home; A Country Funeral; “Old Mrs. O’Hara”

[52]
VI.

Old-Fashioned Husband’s Love-Letter; An Almost Homicide; A “Slaughtered Monster”; A Wesleyan Schoolmistress

[61]
VII.

My First Tutor; The Reign of Terror

[70]
VIII.

Calm After Storm; Our Handsome Yankee Governess; The Nascent Author

[84]
IX.

A College Neighborhood; The World Widens; A Beloved Tutor; Colonization Dreams and Disappointment; Major Morton

[90]
X.

Family Letters; Commencement at Hampden-Sidney; Then and Now

[104]
XI.

Back in Powhatan; Old Virginia Housewifery; A Singing-Class in the Forties; The Simple Life?

[110]
XII.

Election Day and a Democratic Barbecue

[117]
XIII.

A Whig Rally and Muster Day

[129]
XIV.

Rumors of Changes; A Corn-Shucking; A Negro Topical Song

[143]
XV.

The Country Girls at a City School; Velvet Hats and Clay’s Defeat

[149]
XVI.

Home at Christmas; A Candy-Pull and Hog-Killing

[162]
XVII.

A Notable Affair of Honor

[171]
XVIII.

The Menace of Slave Insurrection

[186]
XIX.

Wedding and Bridesmaid; The Routine of a Large Family; My First Bereavement

[196]
XX.

Our True Family Ghost-Story

[203]
XXI.

Two Monumental Friendships

[218]
XXII.

The “Old African Church”

[227]
XXIII.

How “Alone” Came to Be

[237]
XXIV.

The Dawning of Literary Life

[246]
XXV.

Brought Face to Face with My Fate

[254]
XXVI.

Literary Well-Wishers; George D. Prentice; Mrs. Sigourney; Grace Greenwood; H. W. Longfellow; James Redpath; The “Wandering Jew”

[262]
XXVII.

My Northern Kinspeople; “Quelqu’un” and Lifelong Friendship

[270]
XXVIII.

My First Opera; “Peter Parley”; Rachel as “Camille”; Bayard Taylor; T. B. Aldrich; G. P. Morris; Maria Cummins; Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

[280]
XXIX.

Anna Cora (Mowatt) Ritchie; Edward Everett; Governor Wise; A Memorable Dinner-Party

[288]
XXX.

A Musical Convention; George Francis Root; When “The Shining Shore” was First Sung; The Hallelujah Chorus; Betrothal; Dempster in His Old Age

[297]
XXXI.

Wedding Bells; A Bridal Tour; A Discovered Relative; A Noble Life

[304]
XXXII.

Parsonage Life; William Wirt Henry; Historic Soil; John Randolph; The Last of the Randolphs

[313]
XXXIII.

Plantation Preaching; Colored Communicants; A “Mighty Man in Prayer”

[325]
XXXIV.

My Novitiate as a Practical Housewife; My Cook “Gets Her Hand Out”; Inception of “Common Sense in the Household”

[333]
XXXV.

The Stirred “Nest Among the Oaks”; A Crucial Crisis

[346]
XXXVI.

Migration Northward; Acclimation; Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in New York; Political Portents

[355]
XXXVII.

The Panic of ’61; A Virginia Vacation; Mutterings of Coming Storm

[363]
XXXVIII.

The Fourteenth of April, 1861, in Richmond

[370]
XXXIX.

“The Last Through Train for Four Years”

[382]
XL.

Domestic Sorrows and National Storm and Stress; Friends, Tried and True

[389]
XLI.

Fort Delaware; “Old Glory”; Lincoln’s Assassination; The Released Prisoner of War

[399]
XLII.

A Christmas Reunion; A Midnight Warning; How a Good Man Came to “The Happiest Day of His Life”

[408]
XLIII.

Two Bridals; A Birth and a Passing; “My Little Love”; “Drifting Out”; A Nonpareil Parish

[417]
XLIV.

Two Years Overseas; Life in Rome and Geneva

[427]
XLV.

Sunnybank; A New England Parish; “My Boys”; Two “Starred” Names

[436]
XLVI.

Return To Middle States; The Holy Land; My Friends the Missionaries; Two Consuls in Jerusalem

[448]
XLVII.

Lucerne; Good Samaritans and an Englishman; A Lecture Tour; Ohioan Hospitality; Mr. and Mrs. McKinley

[457]
XLVIII.

The Clouds Return After the Rain; Abroad Again; Healing and Health; Idyllic Winter in Florence

[470]
XLIX.

The Going-Out of a Young Life; Present Activities; “Literary Hearthstones”; Grateful Reminiscences

[481]
Appendix[491]
A Fraternal Tribute
The Golden Wedding