- tion. She led me to the bedside of my
father, crying out, "He is dying." The children were around him, and he was groaning in great pain; but he kissed us in turn, and said to me, "Be good to your mother." I may say that throughout her life I have kept the promise I made him as I knelt, crying, at his bedside. He died that night, and I lost my best friend.
My mother for a month talked of him incessantly, and after that very little, except to say, "If your father were alive I should be more considered." I do not know why I, too, was averse to speaking of him, and yet I loved him above all people. But concerning such matters children are puzzled, and unable to express themselves, nor have I ever been other than shy in saying what I feel in the way of affection, whereas on paper I do not suffer this shyness, nor feel the reserve which occasioned Colonel Trumbull to say to me once that I was often unjustly regarded as cold because of my difficulty of being outspoken concerning my regard for those dear to me. I am little better of it to-day.
My father had much land and little money. As was usual in Virginia, he left to
