e real
Lynnhavens, just as the Virginia Club's Smithfield ham is real
Smithfield ham from the little town of Smithfield, Virginia, a few miles
distant. On the bank of the Lynnhaven River is situated the Old Donation
farm with a ruined church, and an ancient dwelling house which was used
as the first courthouse in Princess Anne County; and not far distant
from this place is Witch Duck Point, where Grace Sherwood, after having
been three times tried, and finally convicted as a witch, was thrown
into the river.

The several waterside places I have mentioned are more or less local in
character, but there is nothing local about Fortress Monroe, on Old
Point Comfort, just across Hampton Roads, which has for many years been
one of the most beautiful and highly individualized idling places on the
Atlantic Coast.

The old moated fortress, the interior of which is more like some lovely
garden of the last century than a military post, remains an important
coast artillery station, and is a no less lovely spot now than when our
grandparents went there on their wedding journeys, stopping at the old
Hygiea Hotel, long since gone the way of old hotels.

The huge Chamberlin Hotel, however, remains apparently unchanged, and is
to-day as spacious, comfortable and homelike as when our fathers and
mothers, or perhaps we ourselves, stopped there years ago. The
Chamberlin, indeed, seems to have the gift of perennial youth. I
remember a ball which was given there in honor of Admiral Sampson and
the officers of his fleet, after the Spanish War. The ballroom was so
full of naval and military uniforms that I, in my somber civilian
clothing, felt wan and lonely. Most of the evening I passed in modest
retirement, looking out upon the brilliant scene from behind a potted
palm. And yet, when my companion and I, now in our dotage, recently
visited the Chamberlin, there stood the same potted palm in the same
place. Or if it was not the same, it was one exactly like it.

The Chamberlin is of course a great headquarters for army and navy
people, and we observed, moreover, that honeymooning couples continue to
infest it--for Fortress Monroe has long ranked with Washington and
Niagara Falls as a scene to be visited upon the wedding journey.

There they all were, as of old: the young husband scowling behind his
newspaper and pretending to read and not to be thinking of his pretty
little wife across the breakfast table; the fat blonde bride being
conti