TO

LOUISA MINOT,

THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED

BY

THEIR AUTHOR,

AS AN EXPRESSION OF THAT FRIENDSHIP WHICH WAS

BEGUN IN YOUTH,

AND HAS INCREASED WITH EVERY ADDED YEAR

OF LIFE.

PREFACE.

*

THE title of these volumes will render their

readers liable to a disappointment, from which a few prefatory words may save them. It was chosen simply to mark the period of the story, and that period was selected as one to which an American always gratefully recurs, and as affording a picturesque light for domestic features. The writer has aimed to exhibit the feeling of the times, and to give her younger

* It has been suggested, that the title might be deemed ambitious; that it might indicate an expectation, that this "sixty years since in America" would take place with the "sixty years since" of the great Master. I have not yet forgotten the literature of my childhood-the fate of the ambitious frog. To those who know me, I need not plead "not guilty" to a charge of such insane vanity; and those who do not, will believe me when I say, that the only moment when I could wish the benefactor of the universal reading public to be forgotten, is when my humble productions are under perusal.

readers a true, if a slight, impression of the condition of their country at the most-the only suffering period of its existence, and by means of this impression, to deepen their gratitude to their patriot-fathers; a sentiment that will tend to increase their fidelity to the free institutions. transmitted to them. Historic events and war details have been avoided, the writer happily being aware that no effort at

A swashing and a martial outside

would conceal the weak and unskilled woman.

A very few of our "immortal names" have been introduced, with what propriety the reader must determine. It may be permitted to say, in extenuation of what may seem presumption, that whenever the writer has mentioned Washington, she has felt a sentiment resembling the awe of the pious Israelite when he approached the ark of the Lord.

For the rest, the author of these volumes is most happy in trusting to the indulgent disposition which our American public constantly manifest towards native literature.

THE LINWOODS.

CHAPTER I.

Un notable exemple de la forcenée curiosité de notre nature, s'amusant se préoccuper des choses futures, comme si elle n'avoit pas assez à faire à désirer les présentes.

MONTAIGNE.

SOME two or three years before our revolutionary war, just at the close of day, two girls were seen entering Broadway through a wicket gardengate, in the rear of a stately mansion which fronted on Broad-street, that being then the court-end of the city-the residence of unques