broad thoroughfare shaded by poplars and mulberries, with William and Mary College at one end and the new Capitol at the other. Straggling streets of wide-porched houses bordered with gardens debouched upon this; and spreading away in all directions, like gathered ribbons—by league-long plantation and through broken forest—went tawny, twisting roads.
Along one of these roads, by clumps of rustling laurel, came a great coach with green body and brown cloth, bearing the arms of the Tillotsons of Gladden Hall. A black body-servant rode behind it a-horseback.
The coach, which rolled thumping and swinging ponderously where the way was rugged, pleasantly and lightly where the road was smooth, held a matron and a slender girl. The latter was of that age when nature paints with her richest brush. Her hair was a wave of russet lights, with shadows of warmer brown. Her face, rose-stained, was the texture of a rose. Her mouth, below serious eyes of blended blue, gave a touch of wilfulness. If there was intentness on the brow, so was there languor in the lips, red, half-ripe, the upper short and curved to smile. She was all raptures—all sapphire and rose-gold, against the dark cushion.
Both, as they rode, were silent, looking out
