I have reason to think at this late date, not hearing to the contrary at the time, that the commodore’s visit was quite amicable and friendly. If he was escorted by Texas warships! or even arrived in his own flagship! I never knew. With his imposing uniform and a huge gilt star on his breast, a sword at his side, and a rather fierce mustache (mustaches were little worn then), he looked as if he were capable of doing mighty deeds of daring, for the enterprising new republic on our border. He was accompanied by his aide, a callow youth, also in resplendent attire, a sword so long and unwieldy he was continually tripping, and therefore too embarrassingly incommoded to circulate among the ladies. I met that “aide,” a real fighter in Texas during the late war. He proudly wore a lone star under the lapel of his coat of Confederate gray, and we had a merry laugh over his naval début. He was Lieut. Fairfax Grey. His sister was the wife of Temple Doswell, and many of her descendants are identified with New Orleans to-day.

Mr. Clay, grand, serene, homely and affable; also Gen. Gaines in his inevitable uniform. The two military and naval officers commanded my admiration, as I sat quietly and unobtrusively in a corner in a way “becoming to a child of nine”—“a chiel amang ye, takin’ notes”—but no one took note of the chiel. We had also a jolly itinerant Irish preacher, I think of the Methodist persuasion, whom my father had met at country camp meetings. His call was to travel, and incidentally preach where the harvest was ripe. I remember how, laughingly, he remarked to my father, anent the commodore’s visit, that the chief inhabitants of Western Texas were mesquite grass and buffaloes. He was father of John L. Moffitt of Confederate fame, and a very attractive daughter became the wife of President Lamar.

There was dance music—a piano only—but the room was too crowded for more than one attempt at a quadrille. The notabilities, army, navy and State, did not indulge in such frivolity. Life was too serious with them.

These functions generally began at 8 and terminated before the proverbial small hours. So by midnight the last petticoat had fluttered away; and then there followed the clearing up, and, as the old lady said, the “reinstating of affairs,” which kept the hostess and her sleepy helpers busy long after the rest of the family had fluttered away also—to the land of Nod.

VII
NEW YEAR’S OF OLD

“When I was young, time had for me the lazy ox’s pace,

But now it’s like the blooded horse that means to win the race.”

Here it is New Year’s Day again. It seems only yesterday when we had such a dull, stupid New Year’s Day. Everybody who was anybody was out of town, at country mansions to flourish with the rich, or to old homesteads to see their folks. Nobody walking the streets, no shops were open. Those of us who had no rich friends with country mansions, or no old homesteads to welcome us, remained gloomily at home, with shades down, servants off for the day, not even a basket for cards tied to the doorknob.