ce in the large
parlor soon after breakfast; and to dance her for a few moments in our
arms was one of the first daily duties of each one. Then the morning
reports began to arrive from the different outposts,--a mounted officer
or courier coming in from each place, dismounting at the door, and
clattering in with jingling arms and spurs, each a new excitement
for Annie. She usually got some attention from any officer who came,
receiving with her wonted dignity any daring caress. When the messengers
had ceased to be interesting, there were always the horses to look at,
held or tethered under the trees beside the sunny _piazza_. After the
various couriers had been received, other messengers would be despatched
to the town, seven miles away, and Baby had all the excitement of their
mounting and departure. Her father was often one of the riders, and
would sometimes seize Annie for a good-by kiss, place her on the saddle
before him, gallop her round the house once or twice, and then give her
back to her nurse's arms again. She was perfectly fearless, and such
boisterous attentions never frightened her, nor did they ever interfere
with her sweet, infantine self-possession.

After the riding-parties had gone, there was the _piazza_ still for
entertainment, with a sentinel pacing up and down before it; but Annie
did not enjoy the sentinel, though his breastplate and buttons shone
like gold, so much as the hammock which always hung swinging between
the pillars. It was a pretty hammock, with great open meshes; and she
delighted to lie in it, and have the netting closed above her, so that
she could only be seen through the apertures. I can see her now, the
fresh little rosy thing, in her blue and scarlet wrappings, with one
round and dimpled arm thrust forth through the netting, and the other
grasping an armful of blushing roses and fragrant magnolias. She looked
like those pretty French bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in baskets,
and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful appendage; it was
a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the kittens; and we had,
moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost there every night.

When the mornings were colder, and the stove up stairs smoked the wrong
way, Baby was brought down in a very incomplete state of toilet, and
finished her dressing by the great fire. We found her bare shoulders
very becoming, and she was very much interested in her own little pink
toes. After a very sl