entirely justifies the French officer in his abandonment of the trade of
a soldier. Such is man in his best estate. A charming face can make him
campaign and fight and slay like a demon, can make a coward of him, can
fill him with ambition to win the world, and can tame him into the
domesticity of a drawing-room cat. There is this noble capacity in man to
respond to the divinest thing visible to him in this world. Etienne
Debree became, I believe, a very good citizen of the republic, and in '93
used occasionally to shake his head with satisfaction to find that it was
still on his shoulders. I am not sure that he ever visited Mount Vernon,
but after Washington's death Debree's intimacy with our first President
became a more and more important part of his life and conversation. There
is a pleasant tradition that Lafayette, when he was here in 1784,
embraced the young bride in the French manner, and that this salute was
valued as a sort of heirloom in the family.

I always thought that Margaret inherited her New England conscience from
her great-great-grandmother, and a certain esprit or gayety--that is, a
sub-gayety which was never frivolity--from her French ancestor. Her
father and mother had died when she was ten years old, and she had been
reared by a maiden aunt, with whom she still lived. The combined fortunes
of both required economy, and after Margaret had passed her school course
she added to their resources by teaching in a public school. I remember
that she taught history, following, I suppose, the American notion that
any one can teach history who has a text-book, just as he or she can
teach literature with the same help. But it happened that Margaret was a
better teacher than many, because she had not learned history in school,
but in her father's well-selected library.

There was a little stir at Margaret's entrance; Mr. Lyon was introduced
to her, and my wife, with that subtle feeling for effect which women