f the
precocious genius of the lad (what hath subsequently happened, I wonder,
to stop the growth of that gallant young officer's brains?), and she
must have sent over to his grandmother a lock of the darling boy's hair,
for the old lady, in her reply, acknowledged the receipt of some such
present. I wonder, as it came from England, they allowed it to pass our
custom-house at Williamsburg. In return for these peace-offerings and
smuggled tokens of submission, comes a tolerably gracious letter from my
Lady of Castlewood. She inveighs against the dangerous spirit pervading
the colony: she laments to think that her unhappy son is consorting with
people who, she fears, will be no better than rebels and traitors. She
does not wonder, considering who his friends and advisers are. How can
a wife taken from an almost menial situation be expected to sympathise
with persons of rank and dignity who have the honour of the Crown at
heart? If evil times were coming for the monarchy (for the folks in
America appeared to be disinclined to pay taxes, and required that
everything should be done for them without cost), she remembered how
to monarchs in misfortune, the Esmonds--her father the Marquis
especially--had ever been faithful. She knew not what opinions (though
she might judge from my newfangled Lord Chatham) were in fashion in
England. She prayed, at least, she might hear that one of her sons was
not on the side of rebellion. When we came, in after days, to look over
old family papers in Virginia, we found "Letters from my daughter Lady
Warrington," neatly tied up with a ribbon. My Lady Theo insisted I
should not open them; and the truth, I believe, is, that they were so
full of praises of her husband that she thought my vanity would suffer
from reading them.

When Madam began to write, she gave us brief notices of Harry and his
wife. "The two women," she wrote, "still govern everything with my poor
boy at Fannystown (as he chooses to call his house). They must save
money there, for I hear but a shabby account of their manner of
entertaining. The Mount Vernon gentleman continues to be his great
friend, and he votes in the House of Burgesses very much as his
guide advises him. Why he should be so sparing of his money I cannot
understand: I heard, of five negroes who went with his equipages to my
Lord Bottetourt's, only two had shoes to their feet. I had reasons to
save, having sons for whom I wished to provide, but he hath no chil