of age," but whether he meant when I was twenty-one or of an age when
I was best fitted to hear the truth, I shall never know. But I guessed
the truth from what he let fall, and from what I have since heard from
others, although that is but little, for I could not ask strangers to
tell me of my own people. For some reason, soon after they were
married my mother and father separated and she brought me to live with
her father, and he entered the Southern army.

I like to think that I can remember my mother, and it seems I must,
for very dimly I recollect a young girl who used to sit by the window
looking out at the passing vessels. There is a daguerreotype of my
mother, and it may be that my recollection of her is builded upon that
portrait. She died soon after we came to live with my grandfather,
when I was only three years old, but I am sure I remember her, for no
other woman was ever in the house, and the figure of the young girl
looking out across at the Palisades is very clear to me.

My father was an Irish officer and gentleman, who came to the States
to better his fortunes. This was just before the war; and as soon as
it began, although he lived in the North, in New York City, he joined
the Southern army and was killed. I believe, from what little I have
learned of him, that he was both wild and reckless, but the few who
remember him all say that he had many noble qualities, and was much
loved by men, and, I am afraid, by women. I do not know more than
that, except the one story of him, which my grandfather often told me.

"Whatever a man may say of your father," he would tell me, "you need
not believe; for they may not have understood him, and all that you
need to remember, until when you are of age I shall tell you the whole
truth, is how he died." It is a brief story. My father was occupying a