A Belle of the Fifties Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, covering social and political life in Washington and the South, 1853-1866. Put into narrative form by Ada Sterling

CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD, GIRLHOOD, MARRIAGE.

Chapter 1124 wordsPublic domain

A Bit of Family History—Plantation Scenes in North Carolina and Alabama—A Caravan of the Early Thirties—“De Year de Stars Fell”—I Partially “Scalp” My Cousin—The Strange Experience of an Early Alabama Instructress—Miss Brooks, a Distinguished Educator—My Uncle Takes My Training in Hand—A First Flight into the Beautiful World—Charles Kean and Ellen Tree—I Meet a Famous Belle—Mme. Le Vert Instructs Me in the Dance—An Intense Love Affair—My Knight Fails Me—A Gallant Lover Appears—Social Doings at a Primitive Capital—Poetswains in the Early Forties—A Dance with William L. Yancey—My Premonitions Are Realised and “My Own Comes to Me”—Marriage in the Morn of Life—The Homecoming of the Bride 3