Nor oft, I ween, the new.
Her raven hair plays round her neck
Like tendrils of the vine;
Her cheeks, red, dewy rose-buds deck,
Her eyes like diamonds shine.
Bryan and Pereene.
Anthony Warden had resided in Maryland for forty years before the period of this story. During the greater portion of this time he performed the duties of the Collector of the Proprietary's revenues in the port. By the persuasion of Cecilius Calvert he had become a settler in the New World, where he had received from his patron the grant of a large tract of land, which, in progress of time, under a careful course of husbandry, rendered him a man of easy fortune. One portion of this tract lay adjacent to the town, and stretched along the creek of St. Inigoe's, constituting an excellent farm of several hundred acres. Upon this land the Collector had dwelt from an early period of his settlement.
A certain sturdiness of character that matched the perils of that adventurous colonial life, and a vigorous intellect, gave Mr. Warden great authority over the inhabitants of the province, which was increased by the predominant honesty of purpose and plain, unpretending directness of his nature. A bountiful purse and jocund temper enabled and prompted him to indulge, almost without stint, that hospitality which furnishes the most natural and appropriate enjoyment of those who dwell remote from the busy marts of the world. His companionable habits had left their tokens upon his exterior. His frame was corpulent, his features strongly defined, his eye dark blue, with a mastiff kindness in its glance. The flush of generous living had slightly overmastered the wind-and-weather hue of his complexion, and given it the tints of a ripe pear. Seventy years had beaten upon his poll without other badge of conquest than that of a change of his brown locks to white;—their volume was scarcely diminished, and they still fell in curls upon his shoulders.
Two marriages had brought him a large family of children, of whom the eldest (the only offspring of his first nuptials) was Alice Warden, a maiden lady who now, well advanced in life, occupied the highest post of authority in the household, which had, for several years past, been transferred to her by the demise of the second wife. His sons had all abandoned the paternal roof in the various pursuits of fortune, leaving behind them, besides Mistress Alice, a sister, the youngest of the flock, who, at the epoch at which I am about to present her, was just verging towards womanhood.
The dwelling of the Collector stood upon the high bank formed by the union of St. Inigoe's creek and St. Mary's river. It was, according to the most approved fashion of that day, built of imported brick, with a double roof penetrated by narrow and triangular-capped windows. The rooms were large and embellished with carved wainscots and a profusion of chiseled woodwork, giving them an elaborate and expensive aspect. This main building overlooked, with a magisterial and protecting air, a group of single-storied offices and out-houses which were clustered around, one of which was appropriated by the Collector as his place of business, and may still be seen with its decayed book-shelves, a deserted ruin hard by the mansion which yet survives in tolerable repair. This spacious domicil, with its broad porch, cottage-like appendages and latticed sheds, was embosomed in the shade of elms and mulberries, whose brown foliage, fanned by the autumnal breeze, murmured in unison with the plashing tide that beat against the pebbles immediately below. A garden in the rear, with trellised and vine-clad gateways, and walks lined with box, which the traveller may yet behold in venerable luxuriance, furnished good store of culinary dainties; whilst a lawn, in front, occupying some two or three acres and bounded by the cliff which formed the headland on the river, lay open to the sun, and gave from the water an unobstructed view of the mansion. The taste displayed in these embellishments, the neatness of the grounds, the low, flower-spangled hedge of thorn that guarded the cliff, the clumps of rose trees and other ornamental shrubs, disposed to gratify the eye in the shifting seasons of their bloom, the various accessories of rustic seats, bowers and parterres—all united to present an agreeable and infallible index of that purity of mind which brought into assemblage such simple and attractive elements of beauty.