ance 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 kiss or pinch of the cheek.
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 little 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 pi