pt one to their feet, though there was about her
that foolishness which, in my mind, doth always hamper the extreme
of enthusiasm. This woman, Madam Tabitha Story, was a widow of
considerable property, owning a plantation and slaves, and she had,
as was well known, gone mad with zeal in the cause of Nathaniel
Bacon, and had furnished him with money, and would herself have
fought for him had she been allowed. But Bacon, though no doubt with
gratitude for her help, had, as I believe is the usual case with
brave men, when set about with adoring women, but little liking for
her. It was, in faith, a curious sight she presented as she entered
that hall of Barry Upper Branch with the men rising and bowing low,
and the other women eyeing her, half with defiant glares as of
respectability on the defence, and half with admiration and
comradeship, for she was to the far front in this rebellion as in
the other. Madam Story was a woman so tall that she exceeded the
height of many a man, and she was clad in black, and crowned with a
great hat feathered with sable like a hearse, and her skin was of a
whiteness more dazzling against the black than any colour. Her face
had been handsome had it not been so elongated and strained out of
its proper lines of beauty, and her forehead was of a wonderful
height, a smooth expanse between bunches of black curls, and in the
midst was set that curious patch which she had worn ever since
Bacon's untimely death, it being, as I live, nothing more nor less
than a mourning coach and four horses, cut so cunningly out of black
paper that it was a marvel of skill.

She stared with scorn at the one black woman approaching her with
the silver tray, then she turned and stared at Nick Barry, sitting
half overcome with drink, lolling against the other. He cast a look
of utter sheepishness at her, and then straightened himself, and
rose like the other men, and Dick Barry motioned to both of the
black women to withdraw, which they did, slinking out darkly, both
with a fine rustle of silks. Then Madam Story saluted the other
women, though somewhat stiffly, and Dick Barry, who was never
lacking in a certain gloomy dignity, though they said him to be the
worse of the two brothers, stepped forward. "Madam," he said, "I
pray you to be seated." With that he led her with a courtly air to a
great carved chair, in which his father had been used to sit, and
she therein, somewhat mollified, her black length doubled on its