As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources that
feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus:

In the early days of the settlement of Georgia--ah, how green and
rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of the settlement
of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the stories of their
grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then than now--her
grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous,
if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding
celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples,
for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion
generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on
sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be
a bride of those days.

The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to the
making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in the
proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not follow
that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. For, to
obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, he had to
give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying law, and
getting his license before marriage, and binding himself to live the
first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a device of the
time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the corrupting influence
of over-wealth in young domesticities.

Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and was a
midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living than for