and silver plate. Myrtleberry wax candles gave out an incense that mingled with the odour of hickory snapping in the fireplace.
"Exactly as her mother looked," whispered the grandmother when Judy came down,—grandmother, a brisk little white-capped old lady in quilted satin, who remembered very well the mother of Washington.
The stars hung blazing on the rim of the Blue Ridge and the snow glistened, when out of the great house came the sound of music and dancing. There were wedding gifts after the old Virginia fashion, and when all had been inspected Clark handed his bride a small jewel case marked with her name.
The cover flew open, revealing a set of topaz and pearls, "A gift from the President."
Out into the snow went these wedding guests of a hundred years ago, to scatter and be forgotten.
IV
THE BOAT HORN
All the romance of the old boating time was in Clark's wedding trip down the Ohio. It was on a May morning when, stepping on board a flatboat at Louisville, he contrasted the daintiness of Julia with that of any other travelling companion he had ever known.
The river, foaming over its rocky bed, the boatmen blowing their long conical bugles from shore to shore, the keelboats, flat-bottoms, and arks loaded with emigrants all intent on "picking guineas from gooseberry bushes," spoke of youth, life, action. Again the boatman blew his bugle, echoes of other trumpets answered, "Farewell, farewell, fare—we-ll." Soon they were into the full sweep of the pellucid Ohio, mirroring skies and shores dressed in the livery of Robin Hood.
Frowning precipices and green islets arose, and projecting
