A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War. Letitia M. Burwell
company" being the occupation of the people. Sometimes two or three carriages might be descried in the evening coming up to the door through the Lombardy poplar avenue—the usual approach to many old houses; whereupon ensued a lively flutter among small servants, who, becoming generally excited, speedily got them into their clean aprons, and ran to open gates and to remove parcels from carriages. Lady visitors were always accompanied by colored maids, although sure of finding a superfluity of these at each establishment. The mistress of the house always received her guests in the front porch, with a sincere and cordial greeting.
These visiting friends at my own home made an impression upon me that no time can efface. I almost see them now, those dear, gentle faces, my mother's early friends, and those delightful old ladies, in close bordered tarlatan caps, who used to come to see my grandmother. These last would sit round the fire, knitting and talking over their early memories: how they remembered the red coats of the British; how they had seen the Richmond theater burn down, with some of their family burned in it; how they used to wear such beautiful turbans of crêpe lisse to the Cartersville balls, and how they used to dance the minuet. At mention of this my grandmother would lay off her spectacles, put aside her knitting, rise with dignity—she was very tall—and show us the step of the minuet, gliding slowly and majestically around the room. Then she would say: "Ah, children, you will never see anything as graceful as the minuet. Such jumping around as you see would not have been regarded as dignified in my day!"
"MY GRANDMOTHER WOULD SHOW US THE STEP OF THE MINUET."—Page 32.
My mother's friends belonged to a later generation, and were types of women whom to have known I shall ever regard as a blessing and privilege. They combined intelligence with exquisite refinement; and their annual visits gave my mother the greatest happiness, which we soon learned to share and appreciate.
As I look upon these ladies as models for our sex through all time, I enumerate some of their charms:
Entire absence of pretense made them always attractive. Having no "parlor" or "company" manners to assume, they preserved at all times a gentle, natural, easy demeanor and conversation. They had not dipped into the sciences, attempted by some of our sex at the present day; but the study of Latin and French, with general reading in their mother tongue, rendered them intelligent companions for cultivated men. They also possessed the rare gift of reading well aloud, and wrote letters unsurpassed in penmanship and style.
Italian and German professors being rare in that day, their musical acquirements did not extend beyond the simplest piano accompaniments to old English and Scotch airs, which they sang in a sweet, natural voice, and which so enchanted the beaux of their time that the latter never afterward became reconciled to any higher order of music.
These model women also managed their household affairs admirably, and were uniformly kind to, but never familiar with, their servants. They kept ever before them the Bible as their constant guide and rule in life, and were surely, as nearly as possible, holy in thought, word, and deed. I have looked in vain for such women in other lands, but have failed to find them.
Then there were old gentlemen visitors, beaux of my grandmother's day, still wearing queues, wide-ruffled bosoms, short breeches, and knee buckles. These pronounced the a very broad, sat a long time over their wine at dinner, and carried in their pockets gold or silver snuffboxes presented by some distinguished individual at some remote period.
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