They both smile welcome to Gabriel, and the younger face, disappearing from the window, reappears at the door.  Gabriel naturally kisses those blooming lips, and then goes into the parlor and kisses his mother.  Those sympathetic friends ask him what has happened during the day.  They see if he looks unusually fatigued; and if so, why so? they ask.  Gabriel must tell the story of the unlading the ship Mary B., which has just come in—­which is Lawrence Newt’s favorite ship; but why called Mary B. not even Thomas Tray knows, who knows every thing else in the business.  Then sitting on each side of him on the sofa, those women wonder and guess why the ship should be called Mary B. What Mary B.?  Oh! dear, there might be a thousand women with those initials.  And what has ever happened to Mr. Newt that he should wish to perpetuate a woman’s name?  Stop! remembers mamma, his mother’s name was Mary.  Mary what? asks the daughter.  Mamma, you remember, of course.

Mamma merely replies that his mother’s name was Bunley—­Mary Bunley—­a famous belle of the close of the last century, when she was the most beautiful woman at President Washington’s levees—­Mary Bunley, to whom Aaron Burr paid his addresses in vain.

“Yes, mamma; but who was Aaron Burr?” ask those blooming lips, as the bright young eyes glance from under the clustering curls at her mother.

“Ellen, do you remember this spring, as we were coming up Broadway, we passed an old man with a keen black eye, who was rather carelessly dressed, and who wore a cue, with thick hair of his own, white as snow, whom a good many people looked at and pointed out to each other, but nobody spoke to?—­who gazed at you as we passed so peculiarly that you pressed nearer to me, and asked who it was, and why such an old man seemed to be so lonely, and in all that great throng, which evidently knew him, was as solitary as if he had been in a desert?”

“Perfectly—­I remember it,” replies Ellen.

“That friendless old man, my dear, whom at this moment perhaps scarcely a single human being in the world loves, was the most brilliant beau and squire of dames that has ever lived in this country; handsome, accomplished, and graceful, he has stepped many a stately dance with the queenly Mary Bunley, mother of Lawrence Newt.  But that was half a century ago.”

“Mamma,” asks Ellen, full of interest in her mother’s words, “but why does nobody speak to him?  Why is he so alone?  Had he not better have died half a century ago?”

“My dear, you have seen Mrs. Beriah Dagon, an aunt of Mr. Lawrence Newt’s?  She was Cecilia Bunley, sister of Mary.  When she was younger she used to go to the theatre with a little green snake coiled around her arm like a bracelet.  It was the most lovely green—­the softest color you ever saw; it had the brightest eyes, the most sinuous grace; it had a sort of fascination, but it filled you with fear; fortunately, it was harmless.  But, Ellen, if it could have stung, how dreadful it would have been!  Aaron Burr was graceful, and, accomplished, and brilliant; he coiled about many a woman, fascinating her with his bright eyes and his sinuous manner; but if he had stung, dear?”