Occasionally, too, Aunt Mary would be left without servants, for all American ladies know how difficult it is to retain them in the country, especially in so small and lonely a place as Chappaqua was then, and although she frequently had some friend making her long visits of months, still there were days when she would be alone with only the sad memory of her buried darlings, her splendid Pickie, the pride and hope of both parents, and sweet little Mary Inez, and her two living children, too young to be very companionable.

Raphael, mamma says, was a beautiful boy, although not perhaps so noticeable as Pickie, for he had not his brilliant color, and his hair, too, was not so dazzling in shade, but very much like his father’s.  His features, however, were quite as finely cut as those of his much admired brother, and his temperament was gentle and loving.  Ida cherishes very tender memories of him, for he was the only brother whom she knew, and her constant playfellow before Gabrielle’s birth.  There were seven years difference in the ages of the brothers.  Pickie died at five, of cholera; and Raffie at seven years old, of croup.

But although Aunt Mary had such sad memories in the past, she had two beautiful children left to her, and for them she lived this life of seclusion at Chappaqua, remaining here six months of every year that they might acquire a fine physical development from walking, driving, and riding in the pure country air.  Ida has often told me of the wild games of play she used to have when a child with Osceola, a little Indian boy, and dwelt especially upon her prowess in racing down hill in emulation of him.  The parents of this boy then occupied the roadside house, which did not at that time belong to uncle.

Gabrielle’s stories are different.  She loved to ride the unbroken colts, and tend her menagerie in the play-house.  She has, too, much to tell about the way her mother used to train her to be as fearless in case of fire or thieves as she was when seated upon a bare-backed horse, and often she has made me smile, though fully recognizing the wisdom of Aunt Mary’s lessons, when telling me how she was obliged to rehearse imaginary escapes from fire or midnight attacks.

Besides a devoted love for her children, a passion for the beautiful in Nature, and fondness for solitude and books, or the companionship of some one person of congenial tastes and highly cultured mind, Aunt Mary possessed a fund of moral strength and heroism that one might indeed read in the flash of her black eyes, but which a casual observer would think incompatible with her frail figure.  It was, however, many times severely tested during uncle’s absence when she had no male protector to whom to look for assistance:  but then she proved all-sufficient in herself.  At one time a number of workmen were employed upon the place—­rough, sullen creatures—­who used to come to her to receive their pay; and knowing her, a delicate, sickly woman, to be there alone, they would often clamor for more wages than they were entitled to receive, but never could they frighten her into granting it, for though generous and charitable, nothing was more repugnant to her feelings than an attempt to take an unfair advantage of her.