y that its gilding and paint began
to show the marks of it. The four horses were led out, rubbed down from
nose to heel, and harnessed in their brightest trappings. The driver,
footman, and two outriders donned their liveries, in which they were the
envy of all the other servants, and the coach was driven around to the
front of the house, from which presently emerged Madame Stewart, in a
stately gown of flowered calamanco, her fan and gold pomander in her
hand. Then came Dorothy, her sweet face looking most coquettish under her
Ranelagh mob of gauze, the ribbons crossed beneath her chin and
fluttering half a yard behind. As she tripped down the stops and lifted
her tiffany petticoat ever so little, I could catch a glimpse of the
prettiest pair of ankles in the world in silk-clocked hose, for the
reader can guess without my telling that I was close behind, holding her
kerchief or her fan or her silver etui until she should be safely seated
in the coach. And that once done, the whip cracked, the wheels started,
and I swung myself on horseback and trotted along beside the window, on
Dorothy's side, you may be sure.

So, in great state, we proceeded to the new Quantico church near
Dumfries, a prodigious fine structure of brick, built the year before at
a cost of a hundred thousand weight of tobacco, of which my aunt had
contributed a tenth. The other members of the congregation awaited our
arrival, grouped before the door, and, entering after us, remained
decently standing till we had mounted to the loft and taken our seats, a
show of deference which greatly pleased my aunt. The church was built in
a little recess from the road, in the midst of a grove of ancient trees,
cruciform, as so many others were throughout the colony, and stands today
just as it stood then,--as I have good cause to know, for 't was in that
church, before that altar--But there, you shall learn it all in time.

Doctor Scott was a goodly preacher, but the one portion of the service
for me was the singing, when I might stand beside Dorothy and listen to
her voice. She sang with whole heart and undivided mind, recking nothing
of me standing spellbound there. Indeed, I think the pastor shrewdly saw
that her singing was a means of grace no less than his expounding, and he
never failed to journey to Riverview on a Friday to talk over with her
what should be her part in the service on the coming Sunday. Nor did I
ever know her to refuse this labor,--not beca