emselves off with all the gauds and
gewgaws that fashion could invent. The towering heads of hair which were
such an offence in the eyes of our Puritan forefathers were tolerated,
if not admired, by our grandsires of Virginia; the brocade skirt, the
exposed bosom, the embroidered jupe, straight corset, and gay
farthingale were entirely congenial to the theories of the Virginia
colonists, men as well as women. The gaiety in dress was answered by
gaiety of life. With a rapidity that seemed strange in the face of the
preference for the life of the country, the towns had become more
populous and accessible; and they served as _foci_ for the social
functions and life. Yet, even though there was such rout and revel at
Williamsburg and kindred towns, it was in the houses of the great
planters that one saw the true Virginia social existence, that one found
the Virginia woman of the time in her truest apparition. Under the
influences of the coming of the Cavaliers and the Huguenots--for the
descendants of the latter perpetuated the restless gaiety of their
forsaken land rather than the austerities of the faith which had been
the cause of their exile--there had arisen in Virginia something of a
cult of the social function. The court of Sir William Berkeley had been
a miniature reproduction of that of his king, and though some of the
traditions of his time passed away with the old governor, the main
spirit survived in the ideals of Virginia society. As in all such cases
there must be, there was a certain amount of discernible hollowness;
but, as a rule, there were to be found in the best and most typical
houses of Virginia the graces of the society of the Restoration without
its vices, its courtesy without its affectations. An aristocracy was
growing where none had been before, or at least where there had been but
a feeble and ineffectual leaven of one. At this period, the woman of
Virginia was the typical and representative lady of English America.

[Illustration 5: _ANTONY VAN CORLEAR, TRUMPETER.
After the painting by F. D. Millet.
"It was a moving sight to see the buxom lasses, how they hung about the
doughty Antony Van Corlear--for he was a jolly rosy-faced, lusty
bachelor, fond of his joke, and withal a desparate rogue among women.
Fain would they have kept him to comfort them while the army was away;
for besides what I have said of him, it is no more than justice to add,
that he was a kind-hearted soul, noted for his benevol