And welcome I was indeed to Clawbonny, and most welcome was Clawbonny to me!  In 1804, New York had still some New York feeling left in the State.  Strangers had not completely overrun her as has since happened; and New York names were honoured; New York feelings had some place among us; life, homes, firesides, and the graves of our fathers, not yet being treated as so many incidents in some new speculation.  Men then loved the paternal roof, and gardens, lawns, orchards and church-yards, were regarded as something other than levels for rail-roads and canals, streets for villages, or public promenades to be called batteries, or parks, as might happen to suit aldermanic ambition, or editorial privilege.

Mr. Hardinge met me at the gate of the little lawn, took me in his arms, and blessed me aloud.  We entered the house in silence, when the good old man immediately set about showing me, by ocular proof, that everything was restored as effectually as I was restored myself.  Venus accompanied us, relating how dirty she had found this room, how much injured that, and otherwise abusing the Daggetts, to my heart’s content.  Their reign had been short, however; and a Wallingford was once more master of the five structures of Clawbonny.  I meditated a sixth, even that day, religiously preserving every stone that had been already laid, however, in my mind’s intention.

The next day was that named by Lucy as the one in which she would unite herself to me for ever.  No secret was made of the affair; but notice had been duly given that all at Clawbonny might be present.  I left home at ten in the morning, in a very handsome carriage that had been built for the occasion, accompanied by Moses attired as a bride’s-maid.  It is true his dumpy, square-built frame, rather caricatured the shorts and silk stockings; and, as we sat side by side in this guise, I saw his eye roaming from his own limbs to mine.  The peculiarity of Moses’s toilette was that which all may observe in men of his stamp, who come out in full dress.  The clothes a good deal more than fit them.  Everything is as tight as the skin; and the wearer is ordinarily about as awkward in his movements and sensations, as if he had gone into society, in puris naturalibus.  That Moses felt the embarrassment of this novel attire, was sufficiently apparent by his looks and movements, to say nothing of his speech.

“Miles, I do suppose,” he remarked, as we trotted along, “that them that haven’t had the advantage of being brought up at home never get a fair growth.  Now, here’s these legs of mine; there’s plenty of them, but they ought to have been put in a stretcher when I was a youngster, instead of being left to run about a hospital.  Well, I’ll sail under bare poles, this once, to oblige you, bride-maid fashion; but this is the first and last time I do such a thing.  Don’t forget to make the signal when I’m to kiss Miss Lucy.”