se
involved in certain complications, both political and private. For this
reason Mr. Esmond thought best to establish himself in Virginia, where he
took possession of a large estate conferred by King Charles I. upon his
ancestor. Mr. Esmond previously to this had married Rachel, widow of the
late Francis Castlewood, Baronet, by whom he had one daughter, afterwards
Madame Warrington, whose twin sons, George and Henry Warrington, were
known as the Virginians.

Mr. Esmond called his American house Castlewood, from the family estate
in England. The whole customs of Virginia, indeed, were fondly modelled
after the English customs. The Virginians boasted that King Charles II.
had been king in Virginia before he had been king in England. The
resident gentry were connected with good English families and lived on
their great lands after a fashion almost patriarchal. For its rough
cultivation, each estate had a multitude of hands, who were subject to
the command of the master. The land yielded their food, live stock and
game. The great rivers swarmed with fish for the taking. Their ships took
the tobacco off their private wharves on the banks of the Potomac or the
James River, and carried it to London or Bristol, bringing back English
goods and articles of home manufacture in return for the only produce
which the Virginian gentry chose to cultivate. Their hospitality was
boundless. No stranger was ever sent away from their gates. The question
of slavery was not born at the time of which we write. To be the
proprietor of black servants shocked the feelings of no Virginian
gentleman; nor, in truth, was the despotism exercised over the negro race
generally a savage one. The food was plenty; the poor black people lazy
and not unhappy. You might have preached negro-emancipation to Madame
Esmond of Castlewood as you might have told her to let the horses run
loose out of the stables; she had no doubt but that the whip and the
corn-bag were good for both.

Having lost his wife, his daughter took the management of the Colonel and
his estate, and managed both with the spirit and determination which
governed her management of every person and thing which came within her
jurisdiction.

After fifteen years' residence upon his great Virginian estate the
Colonel agreed in his daughter's desire to replace the wooden house in
which they lived, with a nobler mansion which would be more fitting for
his heirs to inherit. His daughter had a very