ky a
year ago.

On the way I dragged him through several canebrakes, a thicket of
blackberry; kept him out all day; said not a word about dinner; avoided
every spot where he could have gotten a swallow of water; not once sat
down to rest; towards the middle of the afternoon told him I desired to
take enough squirrels home to make Jack a squirrel-skin overcoat, and
asked him to carry while I killed; loaded him with squirrels, neck,
shoulders, breast, back, and loins, till as he moved he tottered and
swayed like a squirrel pyramid; about sundown challenged him to what he
had not yet had, some crack shooting, which in that light requires
young eyesight, and barked the squirrel for him four times; later still
snuffed the candle for him, having brought one along for the purpose;
and then, with my step fresh, led him swiftly home.

He has the blood of Georgiana in him, and stood it like a man. But he
was nearly dead. He has saluted me since as though I were a murderous
garrison intrenched on the Heights of Abraham.

Then the three generals of the United States army descended in a
body--or in three bodies; and the truth is that their three bodies
scarce held them, they were in such a state of flesh when they reached
Kentucky, and of being perpetually overfed while they remained. The
object of their joint visit under a recent act of Congress was to
locate a military asylum for disabled soldiers; and had they stayed
much longer they must have had themselves admitted to their own
institution as foremost of the disabled. Having spent some time at the
Lower Blue Lick Springs, the proposed site--where this summer are over
five hundred guests of our finest Southern society--they afterwards
were drawn around with immense solidity towards Louisville, Frankfort,
Maysville, Paris, and Lexington, being everywhere received with such
honors and provisions that these great guns were in danger of becoming
spiked forever in both barrel and tube.

Upon reaching this town one of them detached himself from the heated
rolling mass and accepted the invitation of young Cobb--who had formed
the acquaintance at West Point--to make a visit in his home. He had
not been there many days before he manoeuvred to establish a private
military retreat for himself in the affections of Mrs. Cobb. So that
his presence became a profanation to Georgiana, whose reverence for her
heroic father burns like an altar of sacred fire, and whose nature
became ren