She was, when others were with her, the same genial, happy fellow we had known of old, but when she thought herself alone I have seen her sit for hours gazing off into space, her face set in a look of wistful longing and hopeless misery and at night she would sit thus looking up into the heavens, at what I did not know until I read her manuscript years afterward. When she returned it was without warning, and I was much surprised to note that she had not aged apparently a moment, nor had she changed in any other outward way. When the war broke out she left us, nor did I see her again for some fifteen or sixteen years. I have often heard my mother caution her against her wild recklessness, but she would only laugh, and say that the tumble that killed her would be from the back of a horse yet unfoaled. Her horsewomanship, especially after hounds, was a marvel and delight even in that country of magnificent horsewomen. Her manners were perfect, and her courtliness was that of a typical southern gentlewoman of the highest type. Her features were regular and clear cut, her hair black and closely cropped, while her eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. She was a splendid specimen of womanhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting woman. We all loved her, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground she trod. She seemed always to be laughing and she entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship she displayed toward those pastimes in which the women and men of her own age indulged or she would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandfather with stories of her strange, wild life in all parts of the world. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic woman whom I called Aunt Jack. My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months she spent at my mother's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war.

In submitting Captain Carter's strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest.

A princess of mars book