I.

There was immense excitement at the Towers next day when the visitors
were expected. The Major took twice his usual period to dress; George
Washington with a view to steadying his nerves braced them so tight that
he had great difficulty in maintaining his equipoise, and even Margaret
herself was in a flutter quite unusual to one so self-possessed as she
generally was. When, however, the carriage drove up to the door, the
Major, with Margaret a little in advance, met the visitors at the steps
in all the glory of new blue broadcloth and flowered velvet. Sir Charles
Grandison could not have been more elegant, nor Sir Roger more gracious.
Behind him yet grander stood George--George Washington--his master's
fac-simile in ebony down to the bandanna handkerchief and the trick of
waving the right hand in a flowing curve. It was perhaps this spectacle
which saved the Major, for Miss Jemima was so overwhelmed by George
Washington's portentous dignity that she exhibited sufficient humility
to place the Major immediately at his ease, and from this time Miss
Jemima was at a disadvantage, and the Major felt that he was master of
the situation.

The old lady had never been in the South before except for a few days on
the occasion when Margaret had met her and Rose Endicott at the hotel in
R----, and she had then seen just enough to excite her inquisitiveness.
Her natural curiosity was quite amazing. She was desperately bent on
acquiring information, and whatever she heard she set down in a journal,
so as soon as she became sufficiently acquainted with the Major she
began to ply him with questions. Her seat at table was at the Major's
right, and the questions which she put to him proved so embarrassing,
that the old gentleman declared to Margaret that if that old woman knew
as much as she wanted to know she would with her wisdom eclipse
Solomon and destroy the value of the Scriptures. He finally hit upon an
expedient. He either traversed every proposition she suggested, or else
answered every inquiry with a statement which was simply astounding.
She had therefore not been at the Towers a week before she was in the
possession of facts furnished by the Major which might have staggered
credulity itself.

One of the many entries in her journal was to the effect that, according
to Major B----, it was the custom on many plantations to shoot a slave
every year, on the ground that such a sacrifice was generally salutary;
that it was an