We read _Ivanhoe_ in the open air when the spring wore into summer. The afternoons were long, and when study-hours were over we were wont to repair to the roomy back-porch, shaded by vines, and looking across a little valley, at the bottom of which were a bubbling spring, a twisting brook, and a tiny pool as round as a moon, to the hill crowned by “Morton,” a plain but spacious house occupied by the Wharey family. Not infrequently a seminary student, attracted by Mary Wharey’s brunette comeliness and happy temper, would join our group and lend a voice in the reading. Moses Drury Hoge, a cousin of my mother and of Aunt Rice, was with us at least twice a week, basking in the summer heat like a true son of the tropics. He was a tutor in Hampden-Sidney while a divinity student, and, as was proved by his subsequent career, was the superior of his fellows in oratorical gifts and other endowments that mark the youth for success from the beginning of the race. I think he was born sophisticated. Already his professors yielded him something that, while it was not homage in any sense of the word, yet singled him out as one whose marked individuality and brilliant talents gave him the right to speak with authority. At twenty-three, without other wealth than his astute brain and ready wits, his future was sure. He won in after years the title of “the Patrick Henry of the Southern Pulpit.” Of him I shall have occasion to speak further as my story progresses. X FAMILY LETTERS—COMMENCEMENT AT HAMPDEN-SIDNEY—THEN AND NOW “RICHMOND, _June 10th, 1843._