eyes and blushes. He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius,
and the French; and then, when they had worked down, and had that long
talking time at the bottom of the set, he said boldly,--a little pale,
she said, as she told me the story years after,--

"And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff?"

And that splendid creature looked through him. Jove! how she must have
looked through him!

"Home!! Mr. Nolan!!! I thought you were the man who never wanted to hear
of home again!"--and she walked directly up the deck to her husband, and
left poor Nolan alone, as he always was.--He did not dance again. I
cannot give any history of him in order; nobody can now; and, indeed, I
am not trying to.

These are the traditions, which I sort out, as I believe them, from the
myths which have been told about this man for forty years. The lies that
have been told about him are legion. The fellows used to say he was the
"Iron Mask;" and poor George Pons went to his grave in the belief that
this was the author of "Junius," who was being punished for his
celebrated libel on Thomas Jefferson. Pons was not very strong in the
historical line.

A happier story than either of these I have told is of the war. That
came along soon after. I have heard this affair told in three or four
ways,--and, indeed, it may have happened more than once. But which ship
it was on I cannot tell. However, in one, at least, of the great
frigate-duels with the English, in which the navy was really baptized,
[Note 8] it happened that a round-shot from the enemy entered one of our