h were sent to
Southampton county, Virginia, for sale.

The names of your great-grandfather's plantations were Conacanarra,
Feltons, Looking Glass, Montrose, Polenta, and Barrows, besides a
large body of land in the counties of Jones and Hyde. His residence
was at Conacanarra, where the dwelling stood upon a bluff commanding a
fine view of the Roanoke river, and, with the pretty house of the head
overseer, the small church, and other minor buildings, looked like a
small village beneath the great elms and oaks.

Your grandfather's principal plantation, and our winter home, was
Runiroi, in Bertie county. The others were "The Lower Plantation" and
"Over the Swamp." At Runiroi we lived and called ourselves at home,
and of it I have preserved the clearest recollection and the fondest
memories.

From Kehukee bluff, which we usually visited while waiting for the
ferryman on our return journey after the summer's absence, the
plantation could be seen stretching away into the distance, hemmed in
by the flat-topped cypresses. From there we had a view of our distant
dwelling, gleaming white in the sunlight and standing in a green oasis
of trees and grass, all looking wonderfully small amid the expanse of
flat fields around it. Apart as I now am from the restless,
never-ending push of life, when neither men nor women have time for
leisure, when even pleasure and amusement are reduced to a business
calculation as to how much may be squeezed into a given time, I think
it might perhaps calm down some of the nervous restlessness that I
perceive in my dear children and grandchildren if they could, for
once, stand there in the soft November sunshine. The splendor of the
light is veiled in a golden haze, the brown fields bask in the soft
radiance and seem to quiver in the heat, while the ceaseless murmur
of the great river is like a cradle song to a sleepy child; the rattle
of the old ferryman's chain and the drowsy squeak of his long sweeps
seem even to augment the stillness. The trees along the banks appear
to lack the energy to hang out the brilliant reds and purples of
autumn, but tint their leaves with the soft shades of palest yellow,
and these keep dropping and floating away, while the long gray moss
waves dreamily in the stillness.

The house at Runiroi was a comfortable, old, rambling structure, in a
green yard and flower garden, not ugly, but quite innocent of any
pretensions at comeliness. Neither was there, to many, a bit