f
the pleasant old mansion were still standing.

But a greater and a better man than the king of the French has honored
this roof. Here, in 1789, came George Washington, the President of
the United States, to pay his final complimentary visit to the State
dignitaries. The wainscoted chamber where he slept, and the dining-hall
where he entertained his guests, have a certain dignity and sanctity
which even the present Irish tenants cannot wholly destroy.

During the period of my reign at Rivermouth, an ancient lady, Dame
Jocelyn by name, lived in one of the upper rooms of this notable
building. She was a dashing young belle at the time of Washington's
first visit to the town, and must have been exceedingly coquettish and
pretty, judging from a certain portrait on ivory still in the possession
of the family. According to Dame Jocelyn, George Washington flirted with
her just a little bit--in what a stately and highly finished manner can
be imagined.

There was a mirror with a deep filigreed frame hanging over the
mantel-piece in this room. The glass was cracked and the quicksilver
rubbed off or discolored in many places. When it reflected your face
you had the singular pleasure of not recognizing yourself. It gave your
features the appearance of having been run through a mince-meat machine.
But what rendered the looking-glass a thing of enchantment to me was a
faded green feather, tipped with scarlet, which drooped from the top
of the tarnished gilt mouldings. This feather Washington took from the
plume of his three-cornered hat, and presented with his own hand to the
worshipful Mistress Jocelyn the day he left Rivermouth forever. I wish
I could describe the mincing genteel air, and the ill-concealed
self-complacency, with which the dear old lady related the incident.

Many a Saturday afternoon have I climbed up the rickety staircase to
that dingy room, which always had a flavor of snuff about it, to sit
on a stiff-backed chair and listen for hours together to Dame Jocelyn's
stories of the olden time. How she would prattle! She was bedridden--poor
creature!--and had not been out of the chamber for fourteen years.
Meanwhile the world had shot ahead of Dame Jocelyn. The changes that had
taken place under her very nose were unknown to this faded, crooning old
gentlewoman, whom the eighteenth century had neglected to take away with
the rest of its odd traps. She had no patience with newfangled notions.
The old ways and the