"Never mind then, father, I can wait. There is plenty of time in life
to make you love me!"

Judge Whaley--for he had been on the bench--was the highest example in
Maryland of honor and pride. A General of militia, often in the
Legislature, and once or twice a Senator at Washington, he had all
the shattered sensibilities of a proud man wounded in the soul. Age
was coming untimely upon his high temples and shadowed countenance,
and as he walked along the market-place and green court-house yard,
polite to men, boys, and negroes, they said in low tones, "Pity such a
real gentleman can't be happy!"

In public affairs Judge Whaley was not silent: he led his party with
intrepid utterances, and his prejudices, like his intellect, were
strong; but though the election sometimes hung by a few votes, and his
influence then gave every temptation on the part of low speakers and
writers to allude to his domestic dishonor, the vile reminiscence was
never mentioned. A profound respect for the man permeated society, and
in his unsmiling way he was kind to whites and blacks. A slaveholder,
and at the head of the principal slave-holding connection, and the
particular champion in that region of slavery privileges, he would
take his Bible and visit the cottages of his negroes and read to them
even when sick of contagious fevers. He defended poor clients freely
in the courts, and fought for the lives of free negroes under capital
indictments. He was of the vestry of the aged Episcopal Church, which
dominated the social influence of the town, and never omitted
attendance on all the services, but with the shadow forever on his
brow. Young Perry went everywhere with his father, and chattered and
was active to oblige him, and sometimes by his boyish humor made a
little light weaken the strong edges of that paternal shadow; but in a