the Scottish family
holdings, Limkiln, Bridekirk, Torthorwald Taken, between his two
grandsons, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting and John Carlyle Herbert. To his
daughter, Sarah Herbert, he left thirty feet on Fairfax Street and one
hundred feet on Cameron Street, to include his dryware house. The
mansion and all other property were for a brief period the property of
his only son.

In his will he expressed the utmost concern for the education of this
boy, George William Carlyle, and urged his executors to spare no expense
and to send him to the best schools. Alas, for the plans of men! The
lad, fired by the talk of father and friends, was serving in Lee's
Legion in 1781, and ere John Carlyle was moldering in his grave this boy
of seventeen years, spirited, brave, heir to large estates, great
fortune and honorable name, and to the title of Lord Carlyle, was dead
at Eutaw Springs, led by that boy hardly older than himself "Light Horse
Harry" Lee.

Enough of serious and sad history; let us in lighter vein go once more
into the lovely paneled blue room where not only weighty conferences
occurred, but where, in lace and satin, noble figures threw aside the
cares of state and trod a measure to the tinkling of the spinet; where
games of cards were indulged in and the _pistoles_ changed hands. Let us
go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany
doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira
and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the
most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the
still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and
turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house.
Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore
satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding,
drinking, eating, and wooing. When a man knew what he wanted, and got it
by God's help and his own tenacity, enjoying himself right lustily in
the getting. Perchance Major John Carlyle, clad in Saxon green laced
with silver, will be wandering up and down his box-bordered paths with
his first love, Sarah Fairfax, watching the moon light up the rigging of
Carlyle & Dalton's great ships at anchor just at the foot of the garden.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Chapter 3

The Married Houses

[209-211 North Fairfax Street. Owner: Mrs. Herbert E. Marshburn.]

When the new town of