Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/26

 20 was afire. Promptly at three o'clock he left his books and his business cares behind him in his study, and, after dressing for dinner, joined his family in the drawing-room. He was invariable in his rule of being there ten minutes before dinner was announced, and he expected all in the house to conform to this. Many guests came and went at Bellevue, but this was never allowed to interfere with his business. After breakfast he would say to the gentlemen, "Here are guns and horses and dogs and books; pray amuse yourself as you like best. I shall have the pleasure of meeting you at dinner." After dinner he was like a boy on a holiday, ready to join in anything that was proposed, and the life of every party. He was so elegantly formed that after his death it was said that the handsomest legs in America were gone. His death was caused by a violent cold, contracted in the discharge of his law business. At this time a young and rising lawyer, Mr. Charles Hill, was already beginning to share many of the important cases and large fees with Benjamin Dabney. This gentleman was destined to become the father of a child who, years after, married the son of his rival, Benjamin Dabney, and whom we knew as our dearest mother.

Our faithful old nurse, Mammy Harriet, who grew up from childhood with my father, being only two years younger than himself, and who was scarcely ever separated from him, sits by me as I write, and she gives me an incident connected with the death of my grandfather too touching to be passed by.

"Yes, honey," she says in her affectionate way, that seems to claim us still as her babies, "'course I 'member when ole marster die. I 'member well de ole 'oman, Grannie Annie, who sot wid him night an' day—sot wid de coffin up-stairs—all by herself; lay by de corpse all night long, put her arms roun' de coffin, an' hold on to it, cryin' all night long. She foller de coffin twenty miles to Bellevue, whar dey bury him; foller behin' it cryin' an' hollerin' an' hollerin' an' cryin' to marster to say how d'ye to Toby—dat was her son—an' to Mars Gregory Smith,—dat was marster's uncle, what was