When her face was uncovered, he thought he discerned
signs of life, and felt a warmth. Finally she revived, and for many
years afterwards supposed the funeral procession to have been a dream;
she having been partially conscious throughout, and having felt the wind
blowing on her, and lifting the shroud from her feet,--for I presume she
was to be buried in Oriental style, without a coffin. Long after, in
London, when she was speaking of this dream, her husband told her the
facts, and she fainted away. Whenever it is now mentioned, her face
turns white. Mr. ------, her son, was born on shipboard, on the coast of
Spain, and claims four nationalities,--those of Spain, England, Ireland,
and the United States; his father being Irish, his mother a native of
England, himself a naturalized citizen of the United States, and his
father having registered his birth and baptism in a Catholic church of
Gibraltar, which gives him Spanish privileges. He has hereditary claims
to a Spanish countship. His infancy was spent in Barbary, and his lips
first lisped in Arabic. There has been an unsettled and wandering
character in his whole life.
The grandfather of Madam ------, who was a British officer, once
horsewhipped Paul Jones,--Jones being a poltroon. How singular it is
that the personal courage of famous warriors should be so often called in
question!
May 20th.--I went yesterday to a hospital to take the oath of a mate to a
protest.
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