It was a merry cavalcade that swung around the great oaks that spring morning in 1774. Two coaches with outriders and postilions led the way with their precious freight—the elder ladies in the first coach, and the second blossoming with flower-like faces and starred with dancing eyes. Booted and spurred, the gentlemen rode behind, and after them rolled the baggage-wagons, drawn by mules in jingling harness. Harry on a chestnut sorrel and the young Kentuckian on a high-stepping gray followed the second coach—Hugh on Firefly champed the length of the column. Colonel Dale and Dave brought up the rear. The road was of sand and there was little sound of hoof or wheel—only the hum of voices, occasional sallies when a neighbor joined them, and laughter from the second coach as happy and care-free as the singing of birds from trees by the roadside. The capital had been moved from Jamestown to the spot where Bacon had taken the oath against England—then called Middle-Plantation, and now Williamsburg. The cavalcade wheeled into Gloucester Street, and Colonel Dale pointed out to Dave the old capitol at one end and William and Mary College at the other. Mr. Henry had thundered in the old capitol, the Burgesses had their council-chamber there, and in the hall there would be a ball that night. Near the street was a great building which the colonel pointed out as the governor’s palace, surrounded by pleasure-grounds of full three hundred acres and planted thick with linden-trees. My Lord Dunmore lived there. Back at the plantation Dave had read in an old copy of _The Virginia Gazette_, amid advertisements of shopkeepers, the arrival and departure of ships, and poetical bits that sang of Myrtilla, Florella, and other colonial belles, how the town had made an illumination in honor of the recent arrival of the elegant Lady Dunmore and her three fine, sprightly daughters, from whose every look flashed goodness of heart. For them the gentlemen of the Burgesses were to give a ball the next night. At this season the planters came with their families to the capitol, and the street was as brilliant as a fancy-dress parade would be to us now. It was filled with coaches and fours. Maidens moved daintily along in silk and lace, high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings. Youths passed on spirited horses, college students in academic dress swaggered through the throng, and from his serene excellency’s coach, drawn by six milk-white horses, my lord bowed grimly to the grave lifting of hats on either side of the street.