nded foes while the battle raged through their
streets, succouring while they resisted. They lived easily and they died
hard, but when death came they met it, not in grim Puritanism, but with
a laugh upon the lips. They made a joy of life while it was possible,
and when that ceased to be, they did the next best thing and made a
friend of death. Long ago theirs had been the first part in Virginia,
and, as they still believed, theirs had been also the centre of all
things. Now the high places were laid low, and the greatness had passed
as a trumpet that is blown. Kingsborough persisted still, but it
persisted evasively, hovering, as it were, upon the outskirts of modern
advancement. And the outside world took note only when it made tours to
historic strongholds, or sent those of itself that were adjudged insane
to the hospitable shelter of the asylum upon the hill.

It was afternoon, and Kingsborough was asleep.

Along the verdurous, gray lanes the houses seemed abandoned, shuttered,
filled with shade. From the court-house green came the chime of
cow-bells rising and falling in slow waves of sound. A spotted calf
stood bleating in the crooked footpath, which traversed diagonally the
waste of buttercups like a white seam in a cloth of gold. Against the
arching sky rose the bell-tower of the grim old church, where the
sparrows twittered in the melancholy gables and the startled face of the
stationary clock stared blankly above the ivied walls. Farther away, at
the end of a wavering lane, slanted the shadow of the insane asylum.

Across the green the houses were set in surrounding gardens like cards
in bouquets of mixed blossoms. They were of frame for the most part,
with shingled roofs and small, square windows hidden beneath climbing
roses. On one of the long verandas a sleeping girl lay in a hammock, a
gray cat at her feet. No sound came from the house behind her, but a
breeze blew through the dim hall, fluttering the folds of her dress.
Beyond the adjoining garden a lady in mourning entered a gate where
honeysuckle grew, and above, on the low-dormered roof, a white pigeon
sat preening its feathers. Up the main street, where a few sunken bricks
of a vanished pavement were still visible, an old negro woman, sitting
on the stone before her cabin, lighted her replenished pipe with a
taper, and leaned back, smoking, in the doorway, her scarlet
handkerchief making a spot of colour on the dull background.

The sun was still