to England. James is a farmer in King William County, Francis is minister of York-Hampton parish, and sister Ruth lives with me, as you know."

A great deal more he told me, which slipped from my memory, for I was thinking over what he had already said.

"And your mother and father," I asked, as we started back together, "fled from France rather than give up their faith?"

"Yes," he answered, and smiled down into my eyes, raised anxiously to his.

"And were persecuted just as the early martyrs were?"

"Yes, very much the same. All of their goods were taken from them, and they were long in prison."

"But they were never sorry?"

"No, they were never sorry. No one is ever sorry for doing a thing like that."

I trotted on in silence for a moment, holding tight to his kindly hand, and revolving this new idea in my mind. At last I looked up at him, big with purpose.

"I am going to do something like that some day," I said.

He gazed down at me, his eyes shining queerly.

"God grant that you may have the strength, my boy," he said. He bent and kissed me, and we returned to the house together without saying another word.

It was the custom of the Fontaine family to hold a meeting every year to give thanks for the deliverance from persecution of their parents in France, and I remember being present with my father and mother at one of these meetings when I was seven or eight years old. One passage of the sermon he preached on that occasion remained fixed indelibly in my mind. He took his text from Romans, "That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He applied the duty thus enjoined to the Fontaine family, saying,—

"For many weary months was our father forced to shift among forests and deserts for his safety, because he had dared to preach the word of God to the innocent and sincere people among whom he lived, and who desired to be instructed in their duty and to be confirmed in their faith. The forest afforded him a shelter and the rocks a resting-place, but his enemies gave him no quiet, and pursued him even to these fastnesses, until finally, of his own accord, he delivered himself to them. They loaded his hands with chains, a dungeon was his abode, and his feet stuck fast in the mire. Murderers and thieves were his companions, yet even among them did he pursue his labors, until God, by means of a pious gentlewoman, who had seen and pitied his sufferings, relieved him."

To my childish imagination, the picture thus painted was a real and living one, and filled me with a singular exaltation. I think each of us at some time of his life has felt, as I did then, a desire to suffer for conscience' sake.

The preachers of Virginia were, as a whole, anything but admirable, a condition due no doubt to the worldly spirit which pervaded the church on both sides of the ocean. The average parson was then—and many of them still are—coarse and rough, as contact with the forests and waste places of the world will often make men, even godly ones. But many of them were worse than that, gamblers and drunkards. They hunted the fox across country with great halloo, mounted on fast horses of their own. They attended horse-races and cock-fights, almost always with some money on the outcome, and frequently with a horse or cock entered in the races or the pittings. And when the sport was over, they would accompany the planters home to dinner, which ended in a drinking-bout, and it was seldom the parson who went under the table first. One fought a duel in the graveyard behind his church,—our own little Westover church, it was,—and succeeded in pinking his opponent through the breast, for which he had incontinently to return to England; another stopped the communion which he was celebrating, and bawled out to his warden, "Here, George, this bread's not fit for a dog," nor would he go on with the service until bread more to his liking had been brought; another married a wealthy widow, though he had already a wife living in England. His bishop was compelled to recall him, but I never heard that he was discharged from holy orders. Another on a certain Saturday called a meeting of his vestry, and when they refused to take some action which he desired, thrashed them all soundly, and on the next day added insult to injury by preaching to them from the text, "And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair." I should like to have seen the faces of the vestrymen while the sermon was in progress! It was not an unusual sight to see the parson riding home from some great dinner tied fast in his chaise to keep him from falling out, as the result of over-indulgence in the planter's red wine. But our worthy pastor, during his forty years' ministry in Charles City parish, was concerned in no such escapades, and I count it one of the great happinesses of my life that I had the good fortune to fall under the influence of such a man. A passage of a letter written by him to one of his brothers in England on the subject of preserving health gives an outline of the rules of his life. After commending active exercise in the open air on foot and on horseback, he says, "I drink no spirituous liquors at all; but when I am obliged to take more than ordinary fatigue, either in serving my churches or other branches of duty, I take one glass of good old Madeira wine, which revives me, and contributes to my going through without much fatigue."

One other figure do I recall distinctly. We had driven to church as usual one Sunday morning in early fall, and when we came in sight of the little brick building, peeping through its veil of ivy, I was surprised to see the parishioners in line on either side the path which led to the broad, low doorway. Mr. Fontaine stood there as though awaiting some one, and when he saw us, came down the steps and spoke a word to father. In a moment, from down the road came the rumble of heavy wheels, and then a great, gorgeous, yellow chariot, with four outriders, swung into view and drew up with a flourish before the church. The footmen sprang to the door, opened it, and let down the steps. I, who was staring with all my eyes, as you may well believe, saw descend a little old man, very weak and very tremulous, yet holding his head proudly, and after him a younger. They came slowly up the walk, the old man leaning heavily upon the other's shoulder and nodding recognition to right and left. As they drew near, I caught the gleam of a great jewel on his sword-hilt, and then of others on finger, knee, and instep. The younger bore himself very erect and haughty, yet I saw the two were fashioned in one mould. On up the steps and into the church they went, Mr. Fontaine before and we after them. They took their seats in the great pew with the curious carving on the back, which I had never before seen occupied.

"Who are the gentlemen, mother?" I whispered, so soon as I could get her ear.

"It is Colonel Byrd and his son come back from London," she answered.
"Now take your eyes off them and attend the service."

Take my eyes off them I did, by a great effort of will, but I fear I heard little of the service, for my mind was full of the great house on the river-bank, which it had once been my fortune to visit. Mr. Fontaine had taken me with him in his chaise for a pastoral call at quite the other end of his parish, and as we returned, we were caught in a sudden storm of rain. My companion had hesitated for a moment, and then turned his horse's head through a gateway with a curious monogram in iron at the top, along an avenue of stately tulip-trees, and so to the door of a massive square mansion of red brick, which stood on a little knoll overlooking the James. The door was closed and