president of the college, commending me to his good offices. So, in due
course, I rode away from Riverview, not regretting it, nor, I dare say,
regretted. In truth, I had no reason to love the place, nor had any
within it reason to love me.

Of my life at college, little need be said. Indeed, I have small reason
to be proud of it, for, reacting against earlier years, perhaps, I
cultivated the Apollo room at the Raleigh rather than my books, and
toasted the leaden bust of Sir Walter more times than I care to remember.
Yet I never forgot that I was a gentleman, thank God! And previous years
of study brought me through with some little honor despite my present
carelessness. I had a liberal allowance, and elected to spend my
vacations at Williamsburg or at Norfolk, or coasting up the Chesapeake as
far as Baltimore, and did not once return to Riverview, where I knew I
should get cold welcome. In fact, I was left to do pretty much as I
pleased, my aunt being greatly occupied with the care of the estate, and
doubtless happy to be rid of me so easily. So I entered my eighteenth
year, and the time of my graduation was at hand. And it was then that the
great event happened which changed my whole life by giving me something
to live for.

It was the custom for the first class, the year of its graduation, to
attend the second of the grand assemblies given by the governor while the
House of Burgesses was in session, and we had been looking forward to the
event with no small anticipation. Many of us, myself among the number,
had ordered suits from London for the occasion, and I thought that I
looked uncommon well as I arrayed myself that night before the glass.
Such is the vanity of youth, for I have since been assured many times by
one who saw me that I was a very ordinary looking fellow. Half a dozen of
us, the better to gather courage, went down Duke of Gloucester Street arm