hes, is no
credit to the Washingtons who own the property to-day, and who, having
rented the place, actually leave family portraits hanging on the walls
to crack and rot through the cold winter.

If there are indeed five thousand Washingtons, and if they are proud of
their descent, a good way for them to show it would be to contribute
twenty-five cents each to be expended on putting Harewood in respectable
condition.

The last member of the Washington family to own Mount Vernon was John
Augustine Washington, of Charles Town, who sold the former home of his
distinguished collateral ancestor. This Mr. Washington was a Confederate
officer in the Civil War. He had a son named George, whose widow, if I
mistake not, is the Mrs. George Washington of Charles Town, of whom I
heard an amusing story.

With another Charles Town lady this Mrs. Washington went to the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the two attended the Fair together
on Washington Day. On this occasion Mrs. Washington made a purchase in
one of the buildings, and ordered it sent to her home in Charles Town.

"What name?" asked the clerk.

"Mrs. George Washington."

The clerk concluded that she was joking.

"I want your _real_ name," he insisted with a smile.

"But," plaintively protested the gentle Mrs. Washington, "that is the
only name I _have_!"

* * * * *

One of the most charming of the old houses in the neighborhood of
Charles Town, and one of the few which is still occupied by the
descendants of its builder, is Piedmont, the residence of the Briscoe
family. It is a brick house, nearly a century and a half old, with a
lovely old portico, and it contains two of the most interesting relics I
saw on my entire journey in the South. The first of these is the wall
paper of the drawing-room, upon which is depicted, not in pattern, but
in a series of pictures with landscape backgrounds, various scenes
representing the adventures of Telemachus on his search for his father.
I remember having seen on the walls of the parlor of an old hotel at
South Berwick, Maine, some early wall paper of this character, but the
pictures on that paper were done in various shades of gray, whereas the
Piedmont wall paper is in many colors. The other relic is a letter which
Mrs. Briscoe drew from her desk quite as though it had been a note
received that morning from a friend. It was written on tough
buff-colored paper, and, though the ink was br