| CHAP. | PAGE |
| I. | Forebears and Patron Saint | 1 |
| II. | Lafayette; Revolutionary Tales; Parents’ Marriage | 16 |
| III. | A Country Exile; Death of the First-Born; Change of Home; A Fireside Tragedy; “Cogito, Ergo Sum” | 27 |
| IV. | A Berserker Rage; A Fright; The Western Fever; Montrose; A Mother Regained | 37 |
| V. | Our Powhatan Home; A Country Funeral; “Old Mrs. O’Hara” | 52 |
| VI. | Old-Fashioned Husband’s Love-Letter; An Almost Homicide; A “Slaughtered Monster”; A Wesleyan Schoolmistress | 61 |
| VII. | My First Tutor; The Reign of Terror | 70 |
| VIII. | Calm After Storm; Our Handsome Yankee Governess; The Nascent Author | 84 |
| IX. | A College Neighborhood; The World Widens; A Beloved Tutor; Colonization Dreams and Disappointment; Major Morton | 90 |
| X. | Family Letters; Commencement at Hampden-Sidney; Then and Now | 104 |
| XI. | Back in Powhatan; Old Virginia Housewifery; A Singing-Class in the Forties; The Simple Life? | 110 |
| XII. | Election Day and a Democratic Barbecue | 117 |
| XIII. | A Whig Rally and Muster Day | 129 |
| XIV. | Rumors of Changes; A Corn-Shucking; A Negro Topical Song | 143 |
| XV. | The Country Girls at a City School; Velvet Hats and Clay’s Defeat | 149 |
| XVI. | Home at Christmas; A Candy-Pull and Hog-Killing | 162 |
| XVII. | A Notable Affair of Honor | 171 |
| XVIII. | The Menace of Slave Insurrection | 186 |
| XIX. | Wedding and Bridesmaid; The Routine of a Large Family; My First Bereavement | 196 |
| XX. | Our True Family Ghost-Story | 203 |
| XXI. | Two Monumental Friendships | 218 |
| XXII. | The “Old African Church” | 227 |
| XXIII. | How “Alone” Came to Be | 237 |
| XXIV. | The Dawning of Literary Life | 246 |
| XXV. | Brought Face to Face with My Fate | 254 |
| XXVI. | Literary Well-Wishers; George D. Prentice; Mrs. Sigourney; Grace Greenwood; H. W. Longfellow; James Redpath; The “Wandering Jew” | 262 |
| XXVII. | My Northern Kinspeople; “Quelqu’un” and Lifelong Friendship | 270 |
| XXVIII. | My First Opera; “Peter Parley”; Rachel as “Camille”; Bayard Taylor; T. B. Aldrich; G. P. Morris; Maria Cummins; Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney | [viii]
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