She tells me, too, of her own grandmother and the
stories before the tallow dips are hghted, when the
old lady's cap glimmers through the dusk. The little
girl leans close against her knee to hear once more of
the sacking by the British, — how the beat of their
oars sounded from the bay at the further side of the
pines, and how frightened Black Pompey's face looked
as he reconnoitered from the tallest, with his master
stamping in impatience at the foot. She grows
breathless as she hears of the hurried flight on horse-
back, and the women and children cowering on pil-
lions. She heaves a deep sigh of reUef as her grand-
mother reaches the return to a house which the " Red-
coats" have left still standing, though they have
slashed the great feather beds and dashed the brown
milk crocks into a hundred pieces.
Now Grandmother is nearing the days of the da-
guerreotype in her stories. She does not tell me of her
blue eyes, the eyes of a great beauty, and the dark
curls dancing against her white throat; but I can see
them all. She is growing dignified, she declares, and
has stopped sending the old lead cannon ball (relic of
British days) whizzing and leaping over the smooth

64



AN OLD DAGUERREOTYPE

length of the veranda. Indeed, I think she has
reached the time of "the rare old book."

It stands in my bookcase where the rich leather
of Shakespeare and Milton overshadows its dimmed
gray binding, as their mightier music drowns its slen-
der spinet note. "The Poetical Works of Miss Lan-
don," so reads the title-page, and opposite is "L. E.
