by
force prove the existence, if we did not know of them otherwise, of
degrees in Virginia feminine station, the representative Virginia woman
was of more pampered and easier existence than was her sister of the
North. In New England as well there were toward the end of the early
colonial period well defined strata of society; but they were neither so
far separated nor so marked as were those of Virginia. The New England
dame was called "Goody" or "Mistress" according to her social standing,
the latter title being for long reserved for the spouse of a knight; the
"Goodies" were not only enormously in the majority, but they were types
of the popular existence. The Virginia woman was softly nurtured and
clad in purple and fine linen,--the latter literally after a time; the
New England woman was expected to do her duties to her husband as he to
her, and her garb was homespun.

Even the conditions of ordinary life were different in the two great
colonies. New England existence was from the first a segregation; there
was a constant tendency to draw together in towns. In Virginia, on the
other hand, there was a tendency to differentiation of residence;
beginning as a chain of plantations the colony continued in this
character. The consequence was a number of small feudalities in outward
aspect and the assumption by the Virginia lady of the position of the
_chatelaine_. Each of the great ladies was a little queen, ruling over a
certain number of acres and subjects; and this attribute of the colony,
at first accidental and of small scope, grew into a condition. Now, this
existence, and the tendencies that brought it about, were far more
English than were the conditions of the northern colonies; and so it is
that in early Virginia we find far less individuality of femininity than
we find in early New England. England held her influence in
Virginia,--the England of the royal court; for it must be remembered
that Virginia was strongly loyal. She never accepted the rule of the
Roundhead; and the influx of the Cavaliers, some of their own wills and
some on compulsion as political convicts, not only confirmed Virginian
politics but Virginian manners. More English than England itself, these
eager Carolists never acknowledged a hiatus in the rule of the Stuarts,
and the Restoration found them entirely in accord with its returning
theories and the majority of its practices. But not all, for Virginia
had some morals left her even after