In the evening Tinsley conducted me to Widow Syms’ house where I intended to take up my quarters. This lady at first suspecting I was some lover put on a gravity that becomes a weed, but as soon as she learned who I was brightened up with an unusual cheerfulness and serenity. She was a portly handsome dame, of the family of Esau, and seemed not to pine too much for the death of her husband. This widow is a person of lively and cheerful conversation with much less reserve than most of her country women. It becomes her very well and sets off her other agreeable qualities to advantage. We tossed off a bottle of honest port which we relished with a broiled chicken. At nine I retired to my devotions, and then slept so sound that fancy itself was stupefied, else I should have dreamed of my most obliging land-lady. This “weed” who did not pine too much for her husband, soon married again, and became the mother of Patrick Henry; and the testimony of Colonel Byrd as to her lively and cheerful conversation shows the heredity of Patrick Henry’s “gift of tongues.” Hie! Betty Martin! tiptoe fine, Couldn’t get a husband for to suit her mind! was a famous Maryland belle, to whom came a-courting two friends, young lawyers, named Dallam and Winston. It was a day of much masculine finery and the two impecunious but amicable friends possessed but one ruffled shirt between them, which each wore on courting-day. Such amiability deserved the reward it obtained, for, strange to say, both suitors won Betty Martin. Dallam was the first husband,--the sacrifice,--and left her a widow with three sons and a daughter. Winston did likewise, even to the exact number of children. Daughter Dallam’s son was Richard Caswell, governor of South Carolina, and member of Congress. Daughter Winston’s son was William Paca, governor of Maryland, and member of the Continental Congress. Both grandsons on their way to and from Congress always visited their spirited old grandmother, who lived to be some say one hundred and twenty years old.