Again there was an inexplicable reference from her to the timber and sawed-lumber interests of the Little Country, and the circumstance that another black wind seemed to shiver the eyelids of Clem lent no light to the mystery of it.  But then, as if some recondite duty to me had been safely performed, she talked to me of herself, of days when the youth of the Old Dominion had been covetous of her smiles, of nightly triumphs in ball and rout, of gay seasons at the nation’s capital, amid the fashion and beauty and wit of Pierce’s administration and of Buchanan’s, of rounds of calls made in her calash, of bewitching gowns she had worn, of theatres and musicales and teas and embassy receptions, in a day when Harriet Lane was mistress of the White House.

For my pleasing she laughed her sprightly way through memories of that romantic past, when she danced and chattered in the fulness of her bellehood, bringing out a multitude of treasured mementoes, compliments she had compelled, witticisms she had prompted, pranks she had played, delectable repasts she had eaten at Lady Napier’s or another’s, the splendor of pageants she had witnessed.  And though she was back in an elder day, she glowed young as she talked, whether recalling official solemnities or a once-cherished gown of embroidered tulle, caught up with bunches of grapes.  The girl’s mouth was her’s—­fresh and full, unlined by care.

It was not until she talked of later, younger days that her face took on an old look.

“When our federated states rose up in their might,” was a phrase that brought the change.  Thereafter she spoke in subdued tones of a time more eventful than romantic, but still absorbing.

She remembered the words in which she felicitated General Pope Walker for having issued the order to fire on Sumter.  She gave details of the privation that Richmond on her seven hills had suffered in the latter days, and she made plain why their women should rise with their men to drink certain toasts; how they, too, had sacrificed and toiled and suffered with the same loyal tenacity.  She mentioned “the present government” casually, as the affair of a day; and spoke of “Mr. Lincoln, their Northern President,” in a tone implying confidence that I shared her feeling for him.

As we went back to the drawing-room for coffee, she summed up herself to me, though she thought to sum up more than herself.

“They swept us with the besom of war, Mr. Blake, and they overwhelmed—­but they could not subjugate us.”

As she spoke, my eyes caught for the first time a portrait that hung on the wall back of her.  It was the portrait of one dark but fair, with shoulders of a girlish slenderness all but thin, with eyes of glowing dusk and a half-smile upon her lips.  It was like my hostess in a fashion of line and color, and yet enough unlike her so that I knew it must be the daughter.  The face was a shade narrower of chin, a bit longer, and in some obscure differing of the features there was an effect of more poise, almost of a maturer dignity, so that while I divined it was the face of her daughter, it would seem to have been better planned for the face of her mother.