His description of the country between Williamsburg and Hanover is more pleasing. "The country through which we pass is one of the finest in lower Virginia. There are many well-cultivated estates and handsome houses." "We arrived before sunset and alighted at a tolerable handsome inn; a very large saloon and a covered portico are destined to receive the company who assemble every three months at the Courthouse[14] either on private or public affairs. This asylum is all the more necessary, as there are no other houses in the neighborhood. Travellers make use of these establishments, which are indispensable in a country so thinly inhabited that houses are often at the distance of two of three miles from each other." [Illustration: Hanover Court House. Photographed by Samuel M. Brosius.] Susan Nelson, a loved friend of Dolly's, lived on New Found River, seven miles off; and he who would know the later history of this neighborhood has but to turn to the writings of her grandson, Thomas Nelson Page, and at once, by the magic of his pen, he will be in "the old country," and its charm will tempt him to linger there and love its people. Dolly's earliest school-days were spent in an "old field" log school-house near by, but she cared little for books, either then or later, but was a merry, loving little maiden, who was "pleasure-loving, saucy, bewitching." As she grew older, with her brothers Walter, Temple and Isaac, and perhaps the little Lucy, she attended the Quaker school at Cedar Creek meeting-house, near Brackett Post-office, but three miles distant. The meeting-house stood in a forest of pine and cedar that grew to its very doors, while close by ran the "clear, sweet water" of Cedar Creek. The house was an old colonial building, most of the materials for which were brought from England; and it stood on part of that tract of land granted by good King George. It consisted of eight hundred acres lying on both sides of Cedar Creek in St. Paul's parish, and was granted to Thomas Stanley, James Stanley and Thomas Stanley, Jr., for "divers good causes and considerations, but more especially for and in consideration of the importation of sixteen persons to dwell within this our Colony of Virginia." "Witness our trusty and well-beloved Alexander Spottswood, Governor, at Williamsburg, under his seal of our Colony, this 16th day of December, 1714." A few years ago the old meeting-house was destroyed in a forest fire. "The blue hills rise in stately strength, Streams ripple soft below, As on those long-gone Sabbath days, One hundred years ago, "When in these crumbling, roofless walls, Where birds flit to and fro, The Quaker fathers worshipped God One hundred years ago. "And word of truth, or praise, or prayer, In measured tone and slow, Was spoken as the Spirit moved One hundred years ago."