“I don’t care a brass copper about her,” he complained to Edith; “and if the family has been producing women like her as long as she says, and is going on at it, all I can say is that it is a pity they have lasted this long, and the sooner they die out the better.  What do I care about her family, pray?  I never heard as much about family in all my life, I give you my word, as I have done since I came to America.  The stories told me are something wonderful,—­all about the two brothers that left England, and all that, you know.  They seem all to have come away in pairs, like the animals in the ark.  I said to one fellow that was beginning with those two brothers, ’Couldn’t you make it three, don’t you think?’ And you’ll not believe me, but I speak quite without exaggeration, when I say that one woman out in Raising assured me gravely that she was descended from the houses of York and Lancaster!”

“She didn’t!" exclaimed Edith.  “That is, if she did, she must have been crazy; and I won’t have you going back to England and giving false impressions of us by repeating such stories.  Promise me that you will never repeat it there.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he replied soothingly.  “It’s an extreme case, I grant, and I’ll say no more about it if it vexes you, but it is a true tale all the same.  Howe was her name, I remember; and I felt like saying,—­I’ll eat my hand if I understand Howe this can possibly be,’—­that’s in the Bab Ballads,—­but I didn’t.”

Sir Robert had small opportunity of making acquaintance with Baltimore.  He was very eager to get down into Virginia, and stayed there but two days.  On the second of these he attended a gentleman’s dinner-party, the annual mile-stone of a military society composed of men who had worn the gray and marked the well-known tendency of tempus to fugit in this agreeable fashion.  Their ex-enemies of the blue were also there, but not in the original overwhelming numbers, and the battle was now to one party, now to the other, the race to the best raconteur, rivers of champagne flowed instead of brave blood, and the smoke of cannon was exchanged for that of Havanas.  Sir Robert’s face beamed more and more brightly as the evening wore on, and reminiscences, anecdotes, stories, jests, songs, were fluently and cleverly poured out in rapid succession by the hilarious company.  The fun was at its height, when he suddenly leaned forward with his body at an insinuating angle and smilingly addressed an officer opposite:  “You must really let me say that I have been delighted by all that I have heard here to-night, and appreciate the compliment you have paid me in permitting me to join you.  And now I am going to ask a great favor.  Could you, would you, give me some idea of ‘the rebel yell,’ as it was called?  We heard so much about that.  I am most curious to hear it.  It is always spoken of as perfectly terrifying, almost unearthly.”

The gentleman whom he addressed looked down the table and rapped to call attention to what he had to say:  “Boys, this English gentleman is asking whether we can’t give him some idea of what the rebel yell is like.  What do you say?  If our Federal friends are afraid, they can get under the table, where they will be perfectly safe, and a good deal more comfortable than they used to be behind trees or in baggage-wagons,” he called out.