s of his satellites. Henceforth,
when we heard the chattering boys coming through the woods, if we
looked out promptly enough, we would see Bob relieving some one of his
doubles of pail or mail-bag; and by the time he reached the houseboat,
he would be in full possession of all means of identification.

"Would you like to go to meet the ladies and gentlemen on the walls?"
Mrs. Bransford asked one day at Shirley.

The invitation was accepted with as much alacrity as if we had feared
that the reception hours were almost over. But there was really no need
of haste; for the lines of notables on Shirley's walls stand there from
generation to generation, yet receiving always with such dignity and
courtesy as permit not the slightest sign of weariness or expression of
being bored.

In meeting those old-time owners and lovers of Shirley, the visitor is
passed from one hand-clasp to another, as it were, down through the
generations of colonial times.

Giving precedence to age, we made our first fancied obeisance before
two distinguished looking people who, however, did not seem entitled to
any consideration whatever on the ground of age, being both in the
prime of life. And yet, these were Colonel and Mrs. Edward Hill, second
of the name at Shirley, and the first master and mistress of the
present manor-house.

We were a little surprised at the Colonel's appearance; for he was
clean shaven and wore a wig. Now, we had been hobnobbing long enough
with those beginners of our country--Captain John Smith, Sir Edwin
Sandys, Lord Delaware, and the rest--to know that they were a bearded
set and hadn't a wig amongst them.

Fortunately, we remembered in time that this portrait-gentleman, old as
he was, did not quite reach back to the days of those first settlers;
and that he had lived to see the great change of fashion (in the reign
of Charles II) that made Englishmen for generations whiskerless and
bewigged.

Though our land was settled by bearded men, with just the hair on their
heads that Nature gave them (and sometimes, when the Indians were
active, not all of that), yet the country was developed and made
independent and set up as a nation by smooth-faced men, most fuzzily
bewigged. That reign of the razor that began in the days of Colonel
Hill, was a long one, and, later, determined the appearance of the
Father of our Country. Imagine George Washington with a Van Dyck beard!

Of course it was bad form for us to stand there