Maysville, Paris, and Lexington, being everywhere received with such
honors and provisions that these great guns were in danger of becoming
spiked forever in both barrel and tube.

Upon reaching this town one of them detached himself from the heated
rolling mass and accepted the invitation of young Cobb--who had formed
the acquaintance at West Point--to make a visit in his home. He had
not been there many days before he manoeuvred to establish a private
military retreat for himself in the affections of Mrs. Cobb. So that
his presence became a profanation to Georgiana, whose reverence for her
heroic father burns like an altar of sacred fire, and whose nature
became rent in twain between her mother's suitor and her brother's
guest.

A most pestiferous variety of caterpillar has infested the tops of my
cherry-trees this summer, and during the general's encampment near Mrs.
Cobb I happened several times to be mounted on my step-ladder, busy
with my pruning-shears, when he was decoying her around her
garden--just over the fence--buckled in to suffocation, and with his
long epaulettes golden in the sun like tassels of the corn. I was
engaged in exterminating this insect on the last day of his sojourn.
They were passing almost beneath me on the other side; he had been
talking; I heard her brief reply, in a voice low and full of dignity,

"I have been married, sir!"

"Mother of Georgiana!" I cried, within myself. But had she ever
thought of taking a second husband she must have seen through "Old
Drumbeater," as Sylvia called him. There were times when their
breakfast would be late--for the sake of letting his chicken be broiled