ar windings of the stream. We found that the latest of
the long line of rectors and equally important rectors' wives that
Westover Church has known were the Reverend and Mrs. Cornick, who told
us of the hopes of the little community that the Government would yet
pay indemnity for the injury done by Federal soldiers to the old
church.

The next morning brought so fine a Thanksgiving Day that our gratitude
rose up with the sun--though the rest of us awaited a more convenient
hour. The air was crisp; the sky was unclouded. When, in good time for
morning service, we went up the hill to the old brick church, we saw
horses and carriages lined along the fence. Inside the building some of
the people who had come early were having neighbourly confidences over
the backs of the pews.

Naturally our thoughts went wandering between service and sermon and
church. Sometimes (and through no fault of the good rector either), we
would find ourselves far back in the story of that colonial house of
worship, and full two hundred years away from the text. We would see
this old church as it stood at first on the wild bank of the James, and
the families of those early planters gathering in. They would come from
up and down the river; some in pirogues and pinnaces and sloops, and
some on horseback with the fair dames on pillions behind. Or, somewhat
later, lordly coaches would roll to the door bearing colonial grandees.

The plain little church had seen brave attire in those days, when the
parish worshipped in flowered silks and embroidered waistcoats and
laced head-dresses and powdered periwigs. Then, after the services,
would come the social hour, when dinner invitations went round, parties
were planned, and there was a general changing about of the guests that
were always filling Virginia homes. Doubtless, the lavish hospitality
of the master of Westover, who attended this church, caused quite a
Sunday pilgrimage to that mansion of his that we had glimpsed through
the trees as Gadabout entered Herring Creek.

We went out past chatting groups (stopping for the greeting of the
rector and his wife); past horses that were being unhitched and
vehicles that were cramping and creaking; on down to the stream where
geese were paddling in the marshes, and overhead the rectory doves were
wheeling in the sunny air. Rowing down the creek toward the houseboat,
we stopped here and there to gather reeds and holly.

"This is the first time that we have