Astor suddenly said to
his servant: "William, where do you expect to go when you die?" The man
replied: "Why, sir, I always expected to go where the other people
went."

Young as my native city was in my youth, it still retained some fossils
of an earlier period. Conspicuous among these were two sisters, of whom
the elder had been a recognized beauty and belle at the time of the War
of Independence.

Miss Charlotte White was what was called "a character" in those days.
She was tall and of commanding figure, attired after an ancient fashion,
but with great care. I remember her calling upon my aunt one morning, in
company with a lady friend much inclined to _embonpoint_. The lady's
name was Euphemia, and Miss White addressed her thus: "Feme, thou female
Falstaff." She took some notice of me, and began to talk of the gayeties
of her youth, and especially of a ball given at Newport during the war,
at which she had received especial attention.

On returning the visit we found the sisters in the quaintest little
sitting-room imaginable, the floor covered with a green Brussels carpet,
woven in one piece, with a medallion of flowers in the centre, evidently
manufactured to order. The furniture was of enameled white wood. We were
entertained with cake and wine.

The younger of the sisters was much afraid of lightning, and had devised
a curious little refuge to which she always betook herself when a
thunderstorm appeared imminent. This was a wooden platform standing on
glass feet, with a seat and a silken canopy, which the good lady drew
closely around her, remaining thus enveloped until the dreaded danger
was past.

My father sometimes endeavored to overcome my fear of lightning by
taking me up to the cupola of our house, and bidding me admire the
beauty of the storm. Wishing to impress upon me the absurdity of giving
way to fear, he told me of a lady whom he had known in his youth who,
being overtaken by a thunderstorm at a place of public resort, so lost
her head that she seized the wig of a gentleman standing near her, and
waved it wildly in the air, to his great wrath and discomfiture. I am
sorry to say that this dreadful warning provoked my laughter, but did
not increase my courage.

The years of mourning for my father and beloved brother being at an end,
and the sister next to me being now of an age to make her debut in
society, I began with her a season of visiting, dancing, and so on. My
sister was very handsome,