ragic days of the nation's birth.

That part which she was now reading seemed to be a sort of preamble to
the rest, and before the girl had progressed far she found a sentence
which, for her, infused life and the warmth of intimacy into the
document.

"It may be that God in His goodenesse will call me to His house which is
in Heaven before I have fully written ye matters which I would sett
downe in this journall," began the record. "Since I can not tell whether
or not I shall survive ye cominge of that new life upon which all my
thoughtes are sett and shoulde such judgement be His Wille, I want that
ye deare childe shall have this recorde of ye days its father and I
spent here in these forest hills so remote from ye sea and ye rivers of
our deare Virginia, and ye gentle refinements we put behind us to become
pioneers."

There was something else there that she could not make out because of
its blurring, and she wondered if the blotted pages had been moistened
by tears as well as ink, but soon she deciphered this unusual statement.

"Much will be founde in this journall, touching ye tree which I planted
in ye first dayes and which we have named ye roofe tree after a fancy of
my owne. I have ye strong faithe that whilst that tree stands and
growes stronge and weathers ye thunder and wind and is revered, ye stem
and branches of our family also will waxe stronge and robust, but that
when it falls, likewise will disaster fall upon our house."

One thing became at once outstandingly certain to the unsophisticated
reader.

This place in the days of its founding had been an abode of love
unshaken by perils, for of the man who had been its head she found such
a portrait as love alone could have painted. He was described as to the
modelling of his features, the light and expression of his eyes; the way
his dark hair fell over his "broade browe"--even the cleft of his chin
was mentioned.

That fondly inspired pen paused in its narrative of incredible
adventures and more than Spartan hardships to assure the future reader
that, "ye peale of his laugh was as clear and tuneful as ye fox horn
with which our Virginia gentry were wont to go afield with horse and
hound." There had possibly been a touch of wistfulness in that mention
of a renounced life of greater affluence and pleasure for hard upon it
followed the observation:

"Here, where our faces are graven with anxieties that besette our waking
and sleeping, it seemeth that