age, but handsome enough, I dare say, and well preserved by his life of
outdoor toil. Certainly Mistress Marjorie, who must have been much
younger, made him a good wife, and when he died, in 1685, he left a son
and a daughter, besides an estate valued at several thousands of pounds,
accumulated with true Scottish thrift. It was this daughter who named the
estate Riverview, and though the house was afterwards remodeled, the name
was never changed. The Stewarts continued to live there, marrying and
giving in marriage, and growing ever wealthier, for the next half
century, at the end of which time occurred the events that brought me
into being.

In 1733, Thomas Stewart, great-grandson of the Scotsman, was master of
Riverview. His portrait, which hangs to-day to the left of the fireplace
in the great hall, shows him a white-haired, red-faced, choleric
gentleman, with gray eyes and proudly smiling mouth. He had been chosen a
member of the House of Burgesses, as had his father before him, and was
one of the most considerable men in the county. His son, Tom, was just
twenty-one, and had inherited from his father the hasty temper and
invincible stubbornness which belong to all the Stewarts.

It was in the fall of 1733 that they made the trip to Williamsburg which
was to have such momentous consequences. The House of Burgesses was in
session, and Mr. Stewart, as the custom was, took his whole family with
him to the capital. I fancy I can see them as they looked that day. The
great coach, brought from London at a cost of so many thousand pounds of
tobacco, is polished until it shines again. The four horses are harnessed
to it, and Sambo, mouth stretched from ear to ear, drives it around to
the front of the mansion, where a broad flight of stone steps leads
downward from the wide veranda. The footmen and outriders spring to their
places, their liveries agleam with buckles, the planter and his lady and