serious, his joy when Bess blushingly told him the news was a pleasure to see.  And Grafton turned to revenge; he went to Mr. Carvel with the paper he had taken from the strong-box and claimed that my mother was of spurious birth and not fit to marry a Carvel.  He afterwards spread the story secretly among the friends of the family.  By good fortune little harm arose therefrom, since all who knew my mother loved her, and were willing to give her credit for the doubt; many, indeed, thought the story sprang from Grafton’s jealousy and hatred.  Then it was that Mr. Carvel gave to Grafton the estate in Kent County and bade him shift for himself, saying that he washed his hands of a son who had acted such a part.

But Captain Clapsaddle came to the wedding in the long drawing-room at the Hall and stood by Captain Jack when he was married, and kissed the bride heartily.  And my mother cried about this afterwards, and said that it grieved her sorely that she should have given pain to such a noble man.

After the blow which left her a widow, she continued to keep Mr. Carvel’s home.  I recall her well, chiefly as a sad and beautiful woman, stately save when she kissed me with passion and said that I bore my father’s look.  She drooped like the flower she was, and one spring day my grandfather led me to receive her blessing and to be folded for the last time in those dear arms.  With a smile on her lips she rose to heaven to meet my father.  And she lies buried with the rest of the Carvels at the Hall, next to the brave captain, her husband.

And so I grew up with my grandfather, spending the winters in town and the long summers on the Eastern Shore.  I loved the country best, and the old house with its hundred feet of front standing on the gentle slope rising from the river’s mouth, the green vines Mr. Carvel had fetched from England all but hiding the brick, and climbing to the angled roof; and the velvet green lawn of silvery grass brought from England, descending gently terrace by terrace to the waterside, where lay our pungies and barges.  There was then a tiny pillared porch framing the front door, for our ancestors never could be got to realize the Maryland climate, and would rarely build themselves wide verandas suitable to that colony.  At Carvel Hall we had, to be sure, the cool spring house under the willows for sultry days, with its pool dished out for bathing; and a trellised arbour, and octagonal summer house with seats where my mother was wont to sit sewing while my grandfather dreamed over his pipe.  On the lawn stood the oaks and walnuts and sycamores which still cast their shade over it, and under them of a summer’s evening Mr. Carvel would have his tea alone; save oftentimes when a barge would come swinging up the river with ten velvet-capped blacks at the oars, and one of our friendly neighbours—­Mr. Lloyd or Mr. Bordley, or perchance little Mr. Manners —­would stop for a long evening with him.  They seldom came without their ladies and children.  What romps we youngsters had about the old place whilst our elders talked their politics.